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TREDIS® 6 User’s Manual

 



 



TREDIS Software Group
EBP US, Inc.
155 Federal Street, Suite 600,
Boston, MA 02110 USA
Tel:617.303.0424
info@tredis.com



 







TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Contents

TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Introduction to TREDIS

Objective of This Document
This TREDIS User Manual describes how to use TREDIS 6 and some best practices for using it as a decision-support tool. Additional practical support for using TREDIS is provided through context sensitive help screens. Other support documents are available on our website (and through the Navigation Menu) for a few special topics and to provide background on the theoretical development and data sources associated with TREDIS.

Note that TREDIS 6.0 is supported for use with the latest versions of Microsoft Edge, Chrome, and Firefox. If you are using any other means to access the platform, some features and functions may not work correctly.

Overview of the Purpose and Use of TREDIS
TREDIS is a decision-support tool that compares two "alternatives," that is, two possible futures, and shows the difference in economic impact and social benefits between those two alternatives. In most cases, the comparison will be between two mutually exclusive options, such as "build a new facility" or "don't build the new facility." In addition to a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) and economic impact analysis (EIA), TREDIS provides other reports that validate the results and provide additional context, as well as functionality that supports grant applications.

There are three major parts to setting up a TREDIS analysis. First, the dimensions of the analysis are defined, and the user selects the two alternatives, the time periods considered, the geographic units used, and the modes modeled. Second, the user provides data on travel behavior associated with each alternative (and, if desired, other data to support a market access or contingent development analysis). This is often done with the support of a travel demand model or sketch tool, but those are not strictly necessary. Third, the user needs to confirm the default factors that TREDIS provides for analysis – among them, operating costs, freight volumes, and other travel-related rates and levels – or overwrite the defaults with their own values.

Following the analysis run, TREDIS provides extensive reports that show BCA and EIA results in great detail, as well as supplemental reports providing greater support for further analysis. Reports in both BCA and EIA demonstrate the difference in expected outcomes across several years – each estimated individually – between the two alternatives defined.

Logging into TREDIS
Using your web browser, access TREDIS by typing https://login.tredis.net and provide your user name and password in the appropriate spaces on the Login Screen, as illustrated in the following figure.

Note that the first time you login to the TREDIS software, you will be prompted to accept the terms of use and to change your password.


TREDIS Login Screen


The icon menu with three (3) horizontal bars at the top right of the screen opens a menu of information sources for TREDIS. From here you may access TREDIS webinars, Tech Advisories, User Documents, View TREDIS News, FAQ's and the TREDIS Knowledge Base.

Once you are logged in, the products for which you have subscribed will be shown in color, while those that are not subscribed will be in black and white monochrome.

TREDIS Steps
Every TREDIS Project follows the steps as shown in the navigation bar in the next figure.

Navigation Bar

 

The following provides an overview of each step in the project analysis process:
Note:  Do not user the "back" button on our browser as this may prevent proper data loading.



The three bar icon menu at the upper right is the Navigation Menu. The following are available from this menu:

User Documentation Technical and user documentation site that includes a link to this document.
Preferences Opens the Preferences window.
Help Opens a section of the User Manual relevant to the screen you are currently on.
User Manual Opens a new browser window with the full User Manual.
Sample Import Spreadsheet Downloads the current version of the Import Spreadsheet.
Product Menu Directs you to the Product Menu screen, with tiles highlighted depending on your user licenses.
TREDIS 5 Takes you to TREDIS 5 log-in.
Log Out Logs out and returns you to sign-in screen.




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Preferences Window

The preferences window sets user preferences that apply to the Travel page and the Results reports.

Preferences


Travel Characteristics: Input Preference Travel Speed means that on the Travel page you may enter speeds instead of entering both travel time and travel distance.

Travel Time means that you must enter both.
Travel Characteristics: Reliability Cost Estimation Method Fraction Congested means that on the Travel page, under Congestion and Flow, you may only enter the fraction of fraction congested for modes where congestion is relevant.

Buffer Time means that on the Travel page, under Congestion and Flow, you may only enter the buffer time associated with each trip (in fractions of an hour).

Both means that on the Travel page, you may enter both Fraction Congested and Buffer Time.
Travel Characteristics: Crash Entry Method Crash-Involved Vehicles means that on the Travel page, you may only enter rates and counts related to Crash-Involved Vehicles, not Crashes.

Crashes means that on the Travel page, you may only enter rates and counts related to Crashes, not Crash-Involved Vehicles.
Results Page Defaults Impact Type selection defines default Impact Type filter for Economic Impact reports. This is a default but can be changed on the reports.

Industry Aggregation selection defines default level of aggregation for Industries for Tracing/Validation and Economic Impact reports. This is a default but can be changed on the reports.

Discount Rates selections define the two discount rates that are immediately available for Benefit-Cost reports. If these are changed here, the Benefit-Cost reports will reload with the new discount rates available.


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Project Management

The Project is the basic unit of a TREDIS analysis and the start of the analysis process.


Selecting and Defining the Project


Current Contract
The highest level of Project organization is by Subscription Contract. Contracts are used to associate projects to the version of TREDIS Economic Data being used and to specify the associated geographies contained in your subscription.

Current Group
Projects are next organized by Groups. To find an existing project, first select the desired Group from the pull-down menu. If your organization has many groups, you can change the sorting order to be by Name (Group Name) or User.

Current Project
Once you have selected the appropriate Group, you can then find your Project in the pull-down menu. Again as for the Group selection, you may change the sorting order to ProjectID, Name (Project Name), Project Owner, Sharing Mode (private or shared (read only) with users within your account), Creation Date, or Last Modified Date.

Travel Analysis Type
Beginning with TREDIS 6, users now have the option to enter their project travel information using the Facility Based method (legacy from prior versions of TREDIS) or to use an O-D Based method (origin-destination). The travel analysis type is defined when creating the project and the selected type is shown here.

Alternatives
TREDIS automatically provides a Base Alternative and a Project Alternative when you create a project. You may change the name by clicking the rename link. Enter the desired name and then click the update link or cancel to keep the current name.

Project Notes
This field allows you to record descriptive information about the current project. To add or edit text in this field, click on the Properties button.

Created On
This field shows the date and time your project was created.

Analysis Complete
TREDIS informs you on the analysis status for the project. If the results are valid from previously running the Analysis, then this field will show the date the analysis was last run successfully. If the analysis was never run or the last run was not successful this field will show NA representing the results are not available without running the analysis again.

This status is helpful when submitting a project for a grant application so you know when the analysis was run and if it was last run prior to the submittal due date.


Next on the Project Page are four buttons:

Create New Project
Use the Create button to start a new project. This will open a popup window that lets you enter the name of your new project and to select the Travel Analysis Type (Facility Based or O-D Based. The newly created Project will be assigned to the Current Group.





Facility Based
The Facility Based Travel Analysis Type is the traditional method for entering travel inputs used in prior versions of TREDIS. This type provides the user with the most flexibility to control the analysis process without limiting the input data screens or restricting access to table fields. 

O-D Based
The O-D Based Travel Analysis Type uses the concept of origin and destinations to specify the flow of travel between regions including a standard, External, that is not specifically defined as a region. This travel type eliminates the fraction of trips that are internal, incoming, outgoing, and through and replaces them with the more specific ones showing the To/From regions. For a single region model (named Default Region), the fraction of trips would be specified as:
  • Internal - From Default Region - to Default Region
  • Incoming - From External - to Default Region
  • Outgoing - From Default Region - to External
  • Through - From External - to External


Properties
To change the Project Properties, use the Properties button. This popup window lets you add an optional Project ID, change the name of your Project, reassign its Group, or to add Project Notes. It is here that you may change the sharing mode - toggle between private where only the project owner may see the project or shared, where anyone with a user login within your account may see the project (read only). Shared projects may be copied.



If you want to share this project with a US DOT Grant Reviewer as part of a grant application, check the US DOT Review Enabled checkbox. This will a grant reviewer to see a read only copy of your project. They may also make a copy which will allow the review to make adjustments to the mode factors and travel inputs as part of their review. Any copies made by the reviewer will be visible to you as a shared project in the same contract and project group as the original submitted project. The grant reviewer's name will appear with the new copied project.

Note: To remove permission for a grant reviewer to see your project uncheck the box and press the Save button.

Copy
Use the Copy button to make a copy of the Current Project. In the window that opens, enter the name for the copied Project.

Delete
The Delete button lets you delete the current Project. You will be given an opportunity to confirm the deletion. Press OK to delete the Project or CANCEL to keep the Project. Only the project owner may delete their project(s).

Warning: Once a project is deleted, it cannot be recovered.

For more advanced users, TREDIS provides you with the ability to manage the Projects in your Groups and to perform a bulk Import of Projects or a bulk Export of results.

The Group Options function allows you to organize, rename, delete, create backups and export results for multiple projects.  Click the Group Options button at the left for more information

The Import Projects button takes you to a screen where you may upload multiple projects at once using a spreadsheet.

The "TREDIS Project Import Template" spreadsheet is available by clicking on the on the menu icon at the top right of the screen and select the Sample Import Spreadsheet or click on the Import Projects button and select the Import Project Template Spreadsheet link. Click on the Import Projects button to the left on this page for more information on using this feature.

The Compare Projects button opens a new window that lets you see the results from multiple projects in the current contract and current group. For more information click on the image of the button at the left

The Multi-criteria Compare button opens a new window that lets prioritize projects with a specialized tool that can weight factors such as VMT savings, economic impacts, and equity considerations. For more information click on the image of the button at the left


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Project Management - Group Options

Projects are organized by Groups.  The Group Options screen allows the user to manage all their projects from a single screen, organizing, filtering, sorting, deleting, and changing sharing modes.  TREDIS also allows performing multi-project tasks, such as exporting results, changing sharing levels, and deleting multiple projects.




Modify Group
The controls in this section deal with creating new groups, renaming groups, and deleting unused groups.

Create New Group
Use the Create button to create a new group. This will open a popup window that lets you enter the name of your new Project Group.  Press the Create button to create the new group and close the window.

Create new group

Press the Create button to create the new group and close the window.

Rename
To change the name of a group, use the drop down menu to select a group name.  Then press the Rename button which will open a window with a field to enter the new group name.

Rename Group

Press the Save button to make the change or Cancel to abandon it.

Delete
To delete a group, select the Group to delete from the drop down menu (Select Group to Modify) and then press the Delete button.  A window will open asking you to confirm that you wish to delete the group or Cancel to abandon the change.


Range Selection
TREDIS now allows you to select a range of projects in the Project List at the bottom of the screen without the need to click on multiple check boxes. By entering the row number for the first project in the range you wish to process, and the row number for the last project in the range, the system will automatically select these projects in the list when you press the select button.

For example, if you want to select projects 2 and 4 as shown in the figure above, you would enter '2' in the Start Project # box and '4' in the End Project # box. Clicking on the select button will check the boxes for projects 2, 3, and 4. Since this function only 'checks' the boxes, you can repeat this process for multiple batches of consecutive projects. This make selecting very large number of consecutive project easier to select.

The projects selected may now be modified using the Modify Selected Projects actions or provide access to the Multirun & Export and Project Backup utilities by selecting the appropriate buttons or controls as described below.

Modify Selected Project
This section of this screen allows you to make bulk changes to multiple projects at once.  The projects to be affected are selected in the list at the bottom of the screen.

Use the Filter by Group drop down menu to select the desired group.  You also have the option to select all groups by selecting All Groups from this menu.  You will notice that the list of projects below will change based on the filter settings.

Next using the check boxes, select the projects you wish to act upon.  Note, by clicking on the column headers you may sort the list of projects by Project Group, Project Name, Project ID, Project Owner, Sharing Mode, Creation Date, or when the project was last modified.

Once you have selected the appropriate Group, you can then find your Project in the pull-down menu. Similar to the Group selection, you may change the sorting order to ProjectID, Name (Project Name), Project Owner, Sharing Mode, Creation Date, or Last Modified Date.

The following are the actions you may take on the selected projects:

Assign
Using the drop down menu 'Assign to a Different Group' select the Group Name to reassign the select projects.  Press the Assign button when ready.  If you have filtered your projects by a specific group, you may notice them disappear from the current view.  Change the filtered group to All Groups or the group name to which you reassigned your projects and they will appear.

Change
In a similar manner, to change projects from Private to Shared (or Shared to Private), select the projects in the table below, select the sharing mode desired, and press the Change button.


Delete Selected Projects
The Delete Selected Projects button will allow you to delete the projects, which are checked in the table.  After pressing the button, you will be asked to confirm that you want to delete the number of projects selected.

Note - this process may take some time.  TREDIS will provide a status as the projects are deleted.


Other Options
TREDIS provides you with the ability to export, as a spreadsheet, a subset of results for multiple projects.  Using the project list table, select the projects to have results generated and then press the Export Results button.  This manage the Projects in your Groups and to perform a bulk Import of Projects or a bulk Export of results.

TREDIS can run the results analyses for multiple projects at one time as a batch process, allowing you to then select a project and directly view your results without needing to run the analyses one by one.   Select from the project list which projects you wish to analyze and then press the Multi Run button.  The system will also create an export spreadsheet of comparative results for the projects selected.  For detailed instructions on using the backup feature, click the button at the left.

TREDIS allows you to make a backup input spreadsheet for archiving or backing up your projects.  Select from the project list which projects you wish to back up and then press the Create Project Backup button.  For detailed instructions on using the backup feature, click the button at the left.

When your project has been created or selected, click the Modes tab at the top of the page.

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Project Management - Import Projects

Using the Project Import feature, the user may enter multiple projects using an Excel spreadsheet.   The steps for importing projects are as follows:
  1. Browse for the spreadsheet containing your projects, then press the Upload button
  2. Select the projects to import by checking the appropriate checkboxes
  3. Click the Import Selected Projects button

Browse for import file

Once loaded, you will be presented with a list of all projects that are contained in the spreadsheet.  On this screen (below) select by clicking the appropriate checkboxes which projects you wish to import.  Once done, click on the Import Selected Projects button.

 

Select projects to import

A pop up window opens where you need to select which Project Group to import the projects.  You may create a new group by entering a new group name and press the create button.  Once the project group is set, Press the Start Import button to initiate the process.

 

Select Group

As the projects are imported, you will see the status on the project list screen.

Note, due to the complex nature of the import spreadsheet and the wide variation on possible input types, extreme care must be taken to ensure the proper value types are entered into each cell of the spreadsheet.  Missing tabs in the spreadsheet or using dollar signs ($) may cause the import process to fail.

Also, note that the system will not allow you to import a project with the same name as a project in your account.  You may either delete the old project or rename either the old or new project before starting the import process.


Import Spreadsheet Details

To import project using the spreadsheet import function, you must use an Excel Workbook with a defined structure. The workbook structure utilizes multiple spreadsheets, with color coded tabs signifying which are required.
The "TREDIS Project Import Template" spreadsheet is available by clicking on the on the menu icon at the top right of the screen and select the Sample Import Spreadsheet or click on the Import Projects button and select the Import Project Template Spreadsheet link.

Import Spreadsheet


The workbook tabs that are colored green are required for the proper operation of the import function:

These tabs must be present within the workbook. The remaining tabs, colored light gray are optional.

Note - the labels on each tab MUST follow the naming convention in the sample spreadsheet.


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Project Management - Compare Projects

The Project Comparison feature allows you to compare analysis results across up to 30 selected projects. It can be used as a sanity check on the validity of your inputs to TREDIS and to easily find significant differences with respect to economic impact and benefit costs.

Project comparison is included in standard TREDIS subscriptions, but not available in the TREDIS MBCA, Trial, or University accounts.

The left side of the screen is a menu that allows you to move between comparison reports.

Project Compare - Project Selection

When you first click on the Compare Projects button, a new window opens which lists all projects that have been analyzed for the current contract and project group. At the top of the screen, you are able to select another contract or group if they exist, which will repopulate the project list.

If you do not see a project in the list, go back to the project screen and check to see if the project has been analyzed. You may either click on results to run the analysis, or if you have multiple projects to analyze, use the multi-run feature within group options on the project page.
Select the projects you wish to view, up to a maximum of 30, and then click on the Run Comparison button. You will then be directed to the Economic Impact Comparison Screen.

Project Compare - Economic Impact Comparison

As seen on the picture above, you may select the Impact Type from the drop down menu, to show the total impact, or filter by construction, operations, market access, or contingent development. Clicking on the Download Data button will export the data used in creating the graphics on the page for the impact type selected.

The chart on the screen will present business output ($M), value added ($M), Jobs, and Labor Income ($M) over time, depending on which tab is selected. The data tab shows a simple table of the results for the results year selected in the analysis settings.

Project Compare - Benefit Costs Across Projects

Clicking on the Benefit-Cost tab on the left menu, presents the graphical view of the Benefit Stream, Cost Stream, Net Benefit, and Benefit Cost Ratios, with a table of the data at the bottom of the screen.

At the top of the screen, you may change the discount rate by entering a value and clicking the submit button. Entering 0 will show the undiscounted values.

Project Compare - Travel Comparison

The Travel Comparison screen shows the travel inputs (difference of project less base) over time for Select which view you wish to see using the dropdown menu. Also download the data over time using the download data button.

Project Compare - Cost Comparison

The Cost Comparison screen shows the total costs, construction costs, or operational costs over time for the selected projects. Use the dropdown menu to select which cost type is of interest and the Download Data button for the raw data.

Project Compare - Timing Across Projects

The Timing screen shows the construction and operations periods of each selected project, along with the constant dollar year used to enter data.

Project Compare - Study Regions Across Projects

The Study Region tab present a list and a map of the study regions for each selected project.


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Project Management - Multi-Criteria Compare

The Multi-Criteria Compare feature allows you to prioritize projects by weighting competing priorities.

The left side of the screen is a menu that allows you to move between comparison reports.

Multi-Criteria Compare – Projects Selection

When you first click on the Multi-Criteria Compare button, a new browser window opens to the tool. On the left are the top-level navigation tabs – Projects Selection, Overall Score, and Individual Metrics.

The Projects tab on the Projects Selection page is the landing screen.

Contract Choose the Contract which contains the groups with the projects to be compared.
Group Choose the Group which contains the projects to be compared.
Comparison Start Year/Comparison End Year Choose the period of analysis; data outside of these years will be disregarded for the analysis.
Discount Rate Select the discount rate to be used in the analysis.

On the Metric Weighting tab, select the weights for each category of evaluation. The upper tier of weights entered must add to 100%. The bottom tier is only the relative weighting of factors within the larger Societal Benefits category. These are weighted just with integer weights, but there is no constraint on their sum.

Multi-Criteria Compare – Overall Score


The Overall Score screen has two tabs, the Table tab and the Chart tab. The Table tab displays the primary results of the analysis.
Raw Metric Value Raw values of component as calculated by TREDIS.
Scaled and Normalized The values after normalization (which accounts for the cost of the project) and scaling (which puts the score on a continuum of scores between 0 and 100). For separate components of Societal Benefits, this is normalized and scaled relative to all the societal benefit components across all projects. For Societal Benefits row, this represents the components added then scaled among the totals.
Weight Weights chosen in the Projects Selection screen.
Individual Score The final score for the component. For Societal Benefits, this is scaled again to produce the total Individual Score for Societal Benefits.

The Charts tab shows scoring data as a bar graph.
The legend at right allows the user to toggle on or off components of interest, and hovering over a bar section will display a score (as in the illustration, where a label for the Vehicle Operating Cost Savings appears). For Societal Benefits, this score is further scaled to represent its final contribution to the individual score.

Multi-Criteria Compare – Individual Metrics

The individual metrics page allows you to perform tracing on the source of individual metrics. The Category dropdown allows you to choose the component of interest.
Cost ($M) Total discounted project cost.
Raw Metric Value Values taken directly from project results.
Normalized Metric value Values after normalization (where values are divided by cost to provide per-dollar metric). For Societal Benefits, reported Normalized Metric Value has already scaled to the value of the project with the highest Normalized Societal Benefits in order to be consistent with the overall scoring process.
Scaled and Normalized Metric Value Values after normalization and scaling (where normalized values are adjusted to a score of 0 to 100 based on the minimum and maximum of the component).

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Project Management - Multi Run Analyses

This screen is used to select the result settings for the projects to be analyzed:
  • Analysis Detail (Project, Base, or compare project vs. Base)
  • Region perspective
  • Results Year
  • Discount Rate (as a percentage)
  • CO2 Cost increase (as a percentage)
  • Industry Aggregation
Multi Run Analysis


A spreadsheet of your comparable results is created for all projects selected. If you wish to have the spreadsheet emailed to you, make sure your email address is included.

When ready, press the Run Analysis button to start analyzing your selected projects.  A status bar is shown so you may observe the status of the analysis process. When the process is completed, an orange Download results button appears.



Click the Back to Project List or Close button when done.

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Project Management - Create Project Backup

Enter a name for your Project Backup Spreadsheet and select the file type - either .xlsx or .xls.  Next provide your email address to be notified when the backup process is completed.

Finally, press the Create Backup File Now button to start the process.  When done, a download link will be provided and an email with a downlink if your email address was provided.


Project Backup


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Timing

Project Timing

Construction Years and Operations Years in your project can be set by clicking on the handle on the range of years and dragging left or right.

Timing Page


Construction Years The years when capital and design costs are modeled, for both spending and impacts
Operations Years The years when recurring maintenance and operations costs and impacts are modeled

Construction Years and Operations Years may overlap for as long as needed. For example, a road widening might open a portion of the road to use mid-construction, at which point travel and operational costs may be relevant while construction costs and impacts are still modeled as well.

Constant Dollar Year This value is now to the baseline economic data. For example, if the economic data is based on 2020, the constant dollar year is set at 2020.
Inventory Interest Rate Enter this as a percentage representing the interest rate of private capital, which will be used for calculations of freight cost logistics.

Analysis Segments

TREDIS allows you to divide your travel into segments to see how distinct groups of travelers affect the benefits and impacts of the entire system. All segments are added together to make up the entire analysis, so any one segment may not be a subset of another. Common uses of segments include differentiating periods of the day – e.g. "AM Peak" and "PM Peak" segments – or demographic groups – e.g. "EJ population" and "Non-EJ population" segments.

Each mode and region will be repeated on the Travel page for each segment defined, and some reports likewise give data on each segment separately (as well as a total of all segments). For example, if weekday Passenger Car - Personal travel makes up only a portion of traffic on weekdays, but nearly all of travel on the weekends, a "Weekday" segment and a "Weekend" segment will allow you to both enter and track the periods separately.

Keep in mind that activity in one segment doesn't affect activity in the other, even when divided into sequential segments, such as time of the day, so that a period labeled "AM Peak" will have no effect on another labeled "PM Peak".


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Regions

TREDIS defines the geographies to be analyzed as Study Regions. A project will have at a minimum one study region with a default name of Default Region.  Up to 5 Study Regions may be defined, each with a unique definition, meaning no two study regions may share the same geography. 

Study Region

The first step is to identify your study regions. If you wish to have more than one, click on the blue 'Add Region' button, which will open a text field for you to enter the name of your new study region in the box labeled Region Name Then press the Add button. Repeat this process until you have all your study regions created.

To rename a study region, click on the rename link to the right of the study region name. This sets the name to edit mode allowing you to change the name.  Clicking outside the text box will save the new name. 

In a similar manner, you may delete study regions by pressing the delete link, however, you must have at least one study region.

The next step is to associate each study region with its geographies. You may select your regions by clicking on the map to select counties or custom regions, or by expanding the drop down menu just below your region's name and use the check boxes to make your selection.

If you have more than one study region, please select the first region to define by clicking on the radio button or color field to the left of that region's delete button. As you hover over a geography contained in your subscription, you will see the name of that geography shown. Clicking on a geography will also select the checkbox in the drop down menu.

Once you selected your first region, you may follow the same process to specify your other regions.

Note:  TREDIS does not allow you to assign a geography to more than one study region.

Note:  Custom Regions are predefined geographies comprised of a group of counties or zip codes, which are set up when your TREDIS subscription is created.

Once all your regions have been selected, you will need to build the economic model by clicking on the orange button, 'Build Model' to the left of the top of the map. This process will take a few moments to complete. You will see a progress indicator and once completed, the build economic model button changes to a blue button saying the 'Model Built'.



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Modes

The next step in using TREDIS is to select the Modes of transportation and the associated Purposes for your analysis.  Using the check boxes contained on this screen, simply check the box in the appropriate row and column.

The double downward arrow icon at the left side of a row indicates that there are detailed modes that may be chosen.  Simply click on this icon to expand the list.

Mode Screen



Save
The blue save button changes to orange to indicate a change has been made and the button needs to be pressed to save the change.
Pressing the Manage Modes button opens a new window that allows you to select which modes to hide, uncluttering the Mode-Purpose table.  This is especially useful if your account has many custom modes. 

Add Custom Modes    
Clicking on the Add Custom Mode Purpose Types bar will expand the screen to allow you to create a new Mode/Purpose combination based on an existing one. 

Adding Custom Modes


Provide a name for the new Mode, select a mode type from the drop down menu and then select an existing mode to use as the template to create your new Mode. Once you have created your new Mode, by clicking the Add button, you may then update the fixed factors using the Manage Modes button at the top right of this page.

Note: Beginning with TREDIS v5 custom modes are shared among all users in your account. Once created they may not be deleted, however, the creator may change the default characteristics of the custom mode.


Adjust Mode Factors

Clicking on this button allows you to change the project defaults for the modes selected in the project.

Only Mode/Purpose combinations selected are displayed and the changes apply only for the current project. Once you have finished entering your changes, please click the SAVE button at the bottom of the screen.  Use the CLOSE button to exit the screen.


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Manage Modes

The Manage Modes screen allows you to view the default fixed factors for all default modes, including those created by others in your account, and to update the values for any custom mode that you created. 

The screen shows all modes, both default and custom, with a checkbox that allows you to hide those modes that you do not need.  For example, if you only deal with highway projects, then you can hide modes that are appropriate for air, marine, and rail, to reduce the clutter on your Modes screen.

In addition, you can see who created the custom modes in your account.  In the picture below, the user logged in is the Demo Account and as creator of the custom mode (Auto - Electric Car) you may click on the edit link to change any of the default values for this mode.  Anyone who uses this mode after the change will see the new values.  Older projects will use the previous values.

Also, you are able to view the default values for custom modes created by others in your account but can not change any values. 

Selecting Modes to show

Once you have made your changes, click the Save Selected button to return to the Modes page.

You may also view the default values for the TREDIS Default modes or Custom modes created by users in your account. If you are the owner of the Custom Mode, then you are able to edit the default parameters.

Select the View link or Edit link as appropriate which will the Adjust Mode Factors screen.


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Adjust Mode Factors


This screen allows you to change the default values within the current project for those modes which have been selected. Once you have finished entering your changes, please click the SAVE button at the bottom of the screen. Use the CLOSE button to exit the screen.

Time Value
Time Value Factors

Crew Cost Factor Value of time in $/hour of crew
Passenger Cost Factor Value of time in $/hour of passengers, for each passenger
Lease Cost Per Hour (Low, Medium, High) $/hour in lease costs for vehicles for Low, Medium or High Sensitivity goods freight

Buffer Time Cost Factor Value of time cost in $/hour of buffer time
Out of Vehicle Transfer Cost Factor Value of time cost in $/hour of out-of-vehicle transfers

Environmental
Environmental Factors

Grams per VMT VOC, NOX, SO2, PM 2.5

Grams per vehicle mile traveled
Fuel Consumption
Fuel Consumption Factors

Congested to Free Flow Consumption per Mile Ratio The ratio of fuel per mile consumed in congested conditions to the fuel per mile consumed in free-flow conditions.

For example, a value of 2 will cause any driving in congested conditions to expend twice as much fuel.

Congested Hour to Congested Mile Ratio The ratio of fuel per hour consumed in congested conditions to the fuel per mile consumed. This is the equivalent of the average miles per hour in congested conditions for this mode.

Fuel Penalty for Ratio on Poor Pavement Fuel Penalty for Ratio on Poor Pavement is the ratio of the penalty value to the ordinary value.

For example, a value of 2 will cause any driving on poor pavement to expend twice as much fuel. A value of 1 will mean that driving on poor pavement is identical to driving on normal pavement. Fraction of Pavement in Poor Condition can be adjusted in Travel > Other.


Occupancy
Occupancy

Ave Crew Members per Veh Number of crew per vehicle for transit or freight vehicles, or drivers of taxis or TNCs; drivers of passenger cars are not included in this figure.

Ave Veh Occupancy Number of non-driver, non-crew passengers per vehicle; drivers of passenger cars are included in this figure.

Freight US Tons per Veh Average number of Freight US Tons per vehicle


Safety
Safety

Fatalities Per 100m VMT Number of expected fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled

Injuries Per 100m VMT Number of expected injuries per 100 million miles traveled

Crash-Involved Vehicles Per 100m VMT Number of expected crash-involved vehicles per 100 million miles traveled

Vehicles per Crash Number of vehicles involved in each crash


Other Costs
Other Cost Factors

Vehicle Operating Cost ($/Mile Free Flow, $/Mile Congested, $/Hour Congested or Idle) Cost of operating each vehicle per mile or hour, depending on conditions.

VOC Penalty Ratio for Poor Pavement Ratio of the penalty value to the ordinary value.

For example, a value of 2 will cause any driving on poor pavement to cost twice as much in vehicle operating costs as on normal pavement. A value of 1 will mean that driving on poor pavement is identical to driving on normal pavement. Fraction of Pavement in Poor Condition can be adjusted in
Travel > Other.

VOT Penalty Ratio Ratio of the penalty value to the ordinary value.

For example, a value of 2 will cause any travel time identified or adjustment (entered in Travel Characteristics) to cost twice as much in Value of Time. A value of 1 will mean that driving on poor pavement is identical to driving on normal pavement. Fraction of Pavement in Poor Condition can be adjusted in Travel > Other.

$ Per Fatality The social benefit of each averted fatality.

$ Per Injury (A, B, C, O, U) The social benefit of each averted injury of the severity indicated on the KABCO scale. U means the severity is unknown.

$ Per Crash-Involved Vehicle The social benefit of each averted crash-involved vehicle.

Other Societal Benefits, Costs Benefits - A positive number representing other non-monetary benefits not otherwise represented, such as public health benefits of cycling. These are done on a vehicle-mile basis.

Costs - A positive number representing other non-monetary costs not otherwise represented, such as noise. These are done on a vehicle-mile basis.

Company Share Fractional share of TNC fare that to the company.


Logistics
Logistics Factors

Late Penalty Fraction (Low, Medium, High) Probability (0 to 1) that a late dock penalty will be assessed for Low, Medium, or High sensitivity goods for every hour of buffer time suggested by the buffer time index calculation.

Inventory Cost Multiplier (Low, Medium, High) Multiple applied to the cost of goods for Low, Medium, or High sensitivity goods in order to estimate the other logistics and supply chain costs of unreliability beyond equipment costs, inventory carrying costs, and dock penalties. These other logistics costs are calibrated to follow NCHRP 824 and 925 but include variation by commodity.

Late Dock Penalty Average penalty assessed when a shipment arrives late at its destination to cover dock workers time and other supply chain costs that are incurred at the facility and passed on to the shipper or receiver.




TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Costs

Users will often want to enter data to reflect one-time construction or improvement costs, as well as on-going costs associated with operations and maintenance of facilities. The Costs screen is where this data is entered.

Conceptually, the label "costs" reflects the use of these inputs in the Benefit-Cost Analysis, where the inputs are used in proportion to benefits, but keep in mind that for Economic Impact Analysis, costs are treated as spending that boosts economic activity.

TREDIS has two views of costs: Basic and Advanced.

Costs are defined by year, region, and facility. Each mode is associated with a facility. TREDIS differentiates the following facilities: Road, Passenger Rail, Freight Rail, Air and Marine.

The facilities available for input depend on the modes and purposes selected in the Modes Facility Based screen.

Basic View

TREDIS allows entries for Road, Rail, Air, and Marine facilities, showing only those that are applicable to the modes selected on the Modes screen.

Note that all inputs are in millions. (The constant dollar year is set on the Timing screen.)

You can export the basic costs table to a spreadsheet and use the cut/copy/and paste functions to aid in your data entry.

The Save button will turn orange to remind you to click it if you make any changes. Red ticks on the boxes indicate values that have changed since the last change.

The following picture shows the Facility Based Project Cost screen for a two region model. This example is based on a rail project so only the Rail facility is shown. (Note: the Facility Based Project is the same as the standard project type in prior TREDIS versions.)

Basic Costs - Facilities Based Project
Basic Costs - Facility Based Project


This next picture shows the O-D Based Project Type, also for a two region model. It should be noted that in this project there is a third region added called External to handle project costs outside the two main regions. This project only deals with trucks so only the Road facility is active.
Basic Costs - O-D Based Project
Basic Costs - O-D Based Project


Total Construction Costs

Each line for Total Construction Costs indicates the cost of the entire project’s investment, to be spread across all construction years (as designated in the Timing screen). The entire sum of the project investment (within the region and facility) is expressed in a single sum and represents a one-time total.

Annual Oper & Maint Costs

Each line for Annual Operations and Maintenance Costs indicates costs that recur annually, whether for maintaining infrastructure, operating services, or other. These recur over every year in the Operations Years in the Timing screen.


The blue Go To Advanced button next to the Save button will open the Advanced view of the Costs screen.
Click this button to open the Cost & Revenue Sharing window and allocate costs and revenue between public and/or private entities.
Click this button to open the Useful Life Settings and change the useful life span of facilities for your project.
Click this button to open the Quantities and Unit Costs window.

Advanced Costs

Using the Advanced view, you may enter detailed costs - Facility Based Project:

Advanced Costs - Facility Based Inputs

Advanced Costs - Facility Based Project


Using the Advanced view, you may enter detailed costs - O-D Based Project:

Advanced Costs - O-D based Inputs

Advanced Costs - O-D Based Project


If there are many rows of inputs, you may want to filter by entering a filter argument in the fields below the column names, then clicking the filter button to choose a type of filter.

Notice that the Spending in Construction Years are available to input for every year of your Construction, and the Spending in Operations Years are available for input for every year of Operations, both set in the Timing screen.

Capital Costs Categories

Property Acquisition - Right-of-way purchases or easements

Engineering and Design - Soft costs of construction, including planning, analysis, legal, architectural, engineering, and design work.

Right of Way - Earthmoving, grading, drainage, and paving. For railroads, this includes all expenditures on the laying of rails; for airports, this includes runway construction.

Transport Structures - Construction of culverts, road bridges, flyovers, railroad bridges, and marine docks

Terminal - Operations offices, maintenance facilities, airport/bus/rail terminals, and storage buildings

Vehicles - Acquisition of rail cars and engines, ferries, airplanes, barges, or maintenance or service vehicles

Technology - Intelligent transportation systems (ITS), communications equipment, electric vehicle infrastructure

Operational Cost Categories

Operations and Services - For Road, Air, and Marine, operations costs for highway toll collection, systems operation, or incident management

Passenger Rail - Costs for operations for Passenger Rail, including systems operation, or incident management

Freight Rail - Costs for operations for Freight Rail, including systems operation, or incident management

Infrastructure and Rehabilitation - Crack repair, repaving, or vegetation control; also includes vehicle servicing.

 

Whenever there is a change to be saved, the blue SAVE button changes to Orange.


The blue Go To Basic button next to the Save button will open the Basic view of the Costs screen. Changing to the Basic view will overwrite any changes you have made in the Advanced view.

Note: Changing to the Basic Mode will overwrite any changes you have made in the Advanced Costs screen.


Click this button to open the Cost & Revenue Sharing window and allocate costs and revenue between public and/or private entities.
Click this button to open the Useful Life Settings and change the useful life span of facilities for your project.
Click this button to open the Quantities and Unit Costs window.


TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Cost and Revenue Sharing

The Cost and Revenue Sharing screen allows you to specify how project costs and revenue are distributed between public and private agencies or organizations. For each type of project cost or revenue, the table shows the derived amount (if applicable), then provides input variables to assign the share of the value on a fractional basis, between the public sector and the private sector.

Project Costs

  • Capital Costs ($m total for Construction Period) - the cost amount shown is derived from the Start-up Cost Component input table
  • Operations Costs ($m/yr for Operations Period) - the amount shown is derived from the Annual Cost Components input table
  • Maintenance Costs ($m/yr for Operations Period) - the amount shown is derived from the Annual Cost Components input table
  • Lease/Contract Costs ($m/yr for Operations Period) - the cost incurred by the public or private agency to run the facility (the amount should be entered alongside the fractions public and private).

Project Revenues

  • Toll Revenues ($m for Analysis Year) - the revenue amount is derived from the Travel Demand Characteristics input table
  • Lease/Contract Revenues ($m/yr for Operations Period) - the revenue amount should be entered alongside the fraction public and private
Note:  All values should be in terms of millions of dollars (or local currency), leaving out the currency symbol.


Revenue and Cost Sharing

Note that, as with cost tables, inputs for the cost and revenue sharing table are specified for all Alternatives (including no-build). The ultimate metrics (return on investment, payback period) are based on the net differences between costs and revenues for the case build vs. no-build.


You can export the basic costs table to a spreadsheet and use the cut/copy/and paste functions to aid in your data entry.

The Save button will turn Orange to remind you to click it if you make any changes.



TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Useful Life Settings

The Useful Life Settings screen lets you change the average lifespan in years for various elements for the four main facilities used by TREDIS:
  • Right of Way - refers to roads, rail beds, runways, etc.
  • Transport Structures - such as bridges and tunnels
  • Buildings and Equipment - includes terminals and warehouses
  • Vehicles - includes trucks, cars, trains, buses, aircraft, etc.
Enter the new values and press the save button to update.


Basic Costs


TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Quantities and Unit Costs

The Quantities and Unit Costs window allows an alternate way to enter capital costs for Construction Years. Once these are entered, if any costs or units are not zero, all capital costs in Construction Year are taken from this window.

Basic Costs


Once entered, total costs are distributed to appropriate categories across all construction years, and on the primary Costs page, the appropriate cells are greyed out (indicating they can’t be manually edited) and a notice at the top left indicates that Quantities and Unit Costs are being used for Construction capital costs.

Basic Costs


You can revert to manual entry by returning to the Quantities and Unit Costs window and clicking Clear All Unit Costs.


TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Travel Characteristics

The travel demand characteristics table contains all the variables describing the quantity and quality of travel for each Study Region, Study Period, and Mode/Purpose for all Alternatives.
 

Required Inputs
Used to identify the number of vehicle (and in the case of transit modes, passenger) trips, distance traveled, and hours traveled.
Occupancy
Use this tab to view and/or change the number of passengers, crew, and freight per vehicle.
Congestion and Flow
This tab is used to adjust the trip congestion parameters and to specify the fraction of trips based on origin and destinations
Fuel
View and/or update federal and state/local fuel taxes.
Charges, Fees, Tolls
View and/or update fees and toll charges per vehicle or passenger.
Other
View and/or update crash rates and adjustments.

Travel data is entered into the multi-tab entry form, pre-populated with default values for a specific year as shown in the upper left corner of the figure. 

The system starts with the current year to describe the current travel characteristics and then using the drop down menu, you select one or more additional years to enter travel data.  TREDIS needs at least two years specified and will interpolate or extrapolate values for years in which data is not provided.  TREDIS shows all years as bold for which data is provided.

Note: To delete entries for an entire year, select that year in the drop down menu and then press the Delete Year symbol.

TREDIS allows you to adjust the commodity mix details by industry.  Click the button shown at the bottom of the screen to open a window where you may enter the values of the commodities as applied to each of the modes included in your project.

For advanced users who wish to enter the cost values directly into TREDIS, use the link at the bottom of the screen below the Commodity Mix Button to Set to Override Mode.

Remember to press the save button prior to leaving this screen.

Overview of Facility-Based vs. O-D Based Projects

In the Project page, when a project is first created, its Travel Analysis Type is set as either Facility Based or O-D Based.

In Facility Based projects, all fields on the tabs in the Travel page – starting with the Required Inputs such as vehicle trips, miles, and hours of travel -- are entered by Region. The proportions that are internal, incoming, outgoing, and through are indicated on the Congestion and Flow tab. In the picture, travel is entered for Boston Region and, separately, for Springfield.
Travel – Facility Based Project
Travel Characteristics - Facility Based


In contrast, in O-D Based projects, all fields on the tabs in the Travel page, including data on trips, miles and hours of travel, are entered on rows where each row is a combination of Regions, with a separate row for each combination of From Region and To Region. External in this case is counted as a Region in addition to any Regions defined on earlier on the Regions page.

Travel – O-D Based Project
Travel Characteristics - O-D Based


Travel Characteristics - Required Inputs Tab

The first tab is used to identify the number of vehicle (and in the case of transit modes, passenger) trips, distance traveled, and hours traveled.
 
Travel Characteristics - Required Inputs


Period Veh-Trips  This variable tells TREDIS how many trips are made by each type of vehicle (mode) per study region, period, purpose, and alternative.  If the Project has only one Period, then this variable is interpreted as annual trips. If multiple Periods are included, then for a single region/purpose/alternative, all periods should sum to annual trips on the facility or network. As such, daily travel figures need to be appropriately scaled. For example, convert "average weekday" values to annual values by multiplying them by 260 (52 weeks x 5 days/week).

Period VMT  This variable tells TREDIS the total distance travelled for the vehicle (mode) per study region, period, purpose, and alternative.  It is used to calculate parameters that are distance dependent such as accident costs, vehicle operating costs and environmental costs.  As with Trips, VMT should be annualized so that for a single study region, and all periods should sum to annual VMT.

Period VHT  Similarly, TREDIS uses this variable to calculate passenger time cost, crew time cost, and freight time cost. It can also be used to calculate vehicle operating costs, depending on how vehicle cost factors have been entered.

Transit Passenger Trips  In a similar manner to vehicle trips, this field is used for transit modes to enter the annual number of passenger trips.

Transit Passenger Miles  TREDIS uses this field for the annual distance travelled by all passengers. This value is related to the vehicle distance travelled multiplied by the average occupancy rate of the vehicle.

Transit Passenger Hours  Similar to the distance travelled, this field contains the time spent by each passenger annually.

Out of Vehicle Passenger Time  Enter the wait or connection time for the mode for an annualized passenger perspective.


The follow fields are unique to the O-D Based projects and do not appear in the Facility Based Projects replacing the Region field:

From Region The origin region of the trips

To Region The destination region of the trips


Remember to press the save button prior to leaving this screen.

Travel Characteristics - Occupancy Tab

The Occupancy Tab allows you to view and/or change the number of crew and passengers per vehicle as well as the freight capacities of modes that carry freight. 

In the case of transit modes (bus and passenger rail for example), the average passenger occupancy rates are calculated from the values entered in the Required Tab for vehicles and passengers, and may not be changed here.  All values are initially set to the default values.

Note:  You may only enter or update the values in those fields that are not gray.


 
Travel Characteristics - Occupancy Inputs


Avg Crew Members per Veh This field shows the default average number of crew members for each vehicle of the specified mode and may be changed by the user.

Avg Vehicle Occupancy The Average Vehicle Occupancy is the number of passengers on average for the specified mode.  For transit modes, such as passenger bus or rail, the value is calculated from the values on the Required Inputs tab as the ratio of Transit Passenger Trips / Period Veh-Trips.  For freight modes, the field is not applicable and may not be changed.

Freight US Tons per Veh Similarly, this field shows the average weight of the freight carried per vehicle in the units of measure applicable to your country.  For the United States, it is expressed in US Tons.  For non-freight carrying modes, this field may not be changed.

Remember to press the save button prior to leaving this screen.

Travel Characteristics - Congestion and Flow Tab

This tab is used to enter congestion information and the fraction of vehicles in each of four origin/destination pairs (internal, incoming, outgoing, and through).

The following picture shows the Facility Based input screen for Travel - Congestion and Flow. Note - this is the same as the Standard Analysis type in previous versions of TREDIS.
 
Travel Characteristics - Congestion
Travel - Congestion and Flow - Facility Based Projects


TREDIS lets you enter either Fraction Congested or Buffer Time for your project. By selecting the options menu (the "hamburger" icon in the top right of the header bard), select Preferences from the drop-down menu to access the preferences dialogue.

Travel Characteristics - Preferences

Fraction Congested is used to estimate how much vehicles are subject to extra costs from travelling in congested conditions, such as operating costs (e.g., wear-and-tear on brakes) and reduced fuel efficiency (from start-and-stop conditions).

Buffer Time is used to calculate how much time is added to trips to account for unreliability. Unreliable travel times cause travelers to make early departures to buffer against potential delay.

The remaining inputs on the Preferences screen are used to running the analyses and will be discussed on the Run Analysis section..

NOTE: These variables and related factors are only used and calculated for private vehicles that use the Road facility.

If you choose either Fraction Congested or Buffer Time, TREDIS will grey out the other column in the Travel > Congestion and Flow tab. When analyzing results, TREDIS will use a non-linear function to estimate the other, missing variable and use that estimate to calculate costs.

However, if you have estimated both Fraction Congested and Buffer Time, choose Both on the preferences screen and enter both variables. Entering 0 for either will mean that no cost premium will be calculated for congestion or delay.

Fraction Congested The fraction of all travel (in that row) subject to congestion. For highway modes, it should be calculated as the fraction of VMT subject to a volume capacity greater than 0.9.

NOTE: The value should be entered as a fraction (not a percent), so values must lie between 0 (no congestion) and 1 (pervasive congestion). Entering 0.35 is valid, whereas entering 35 or 35% is not.

Buffer Time (hrs per Trip) TREDIS uses the concept of Buffer Time to capture this effect. It is defined as the extra scheduling time (in hours) required ensuring an on-time arrival every 19 out of 20 vehicle-trips (95 percent). For example, if a sample trip takes 30 minutes on average, but 1 out of every 20 days it takes 45 minutes, then the buffer time is 0.25 hours (15 minutes).

NOTE: The value should be entered as a fraction of hours.

Fractional Flows

The following four variables are used in tandem to perform two functions.

The first function of these variables is to determine the fraction of travel-related benefits that accrue to residents and businesses inside the study region.

Second, for freight modes, they are used to match commodity costs to industries based on whether the commodities are being imported or exported. Incoming freight trips are matched to industries that use the commodity being shipped, whereas outgoing trips are matched to industries that produce the on-board commodity (internal trips are split between users and producers).

Note:  The sum of the four parameters below must equal 1.0


The four variables are:

Fraction of Trips: Internal Internal Trips begin and end within the study region

Fraction of Trips: Incoming Incoming trips begin outside the study region and have their destination in the study region

Fraction of Trips: Outgoing Outgoing trips are essentially exports from the study region, originating within and terminating externally

Fraction of Trips: Through Through trips have both their origin and destinations outside the study region with the vehicles passing through


The next picture shows the Travel - Congestion and Flow input screen for O-D Based Projects. Note - in this screen the Fraction of Trips Internal, Incoming, Outgoing, and Through are disabled as the required information is provided directly from the two columns From Region and To Region on the Required Inputs tab. The remaining fields operate the same as for Facility Based.

Travel Characteristics
Travel - Congestion and Flow - O-D Based Project


Remember to press the save button prior to leaving this screen.

Travel Characteristics - Fuel Tab

TREDIS includes federal and state fuel tax rates for various fuel types (gasoline, diesel, etc.) which may be overwritten as needed. Additionally, fuel efficiency can be changed.


 
Travel Characteristics - Fuel


Fuel Type This field identifies the fuel type for each mode: Gasoline, Diesel, Electric, Aviation Fuel, Marine Fuel, or none (for bicycles and pedestrians). This field cannot be changed but shows the relevant fuel type for subsequent fields.

Fuel Cost This field is prepopulated with the cost for the fuel type shown, depending on the study region state. It includes both state and federal fuel taxes, which are shown in their respective columns in this table. The user may change fuel costs, but if the cost changes are due to changes in federal and/or state fuel taxes, then those values also need to be adjusted.

Federal Fuel Tax The federal fuel tax is initially set to the current per gallon (or other unit of measure as appropriate for your country) and may be changed as desired.  Defaults are provided for the different fuel types (gas, diesel, aviation fuel, etc.)

State Fuel Tax In a similar manner to federal fuel tax, this field allows you to override the state fuel tax rates.

Fuel Per Mile This is the fuel used per mile, in whatever units are appropriate for the Fuel Type, most typically gallons of gasoline for Fuel Type of Gasoline.


Remember to press the save button prior to leaving this screen.

Travel Characteristics - Charges, Fees, Tolls Tab

This tab is used to view and change various fees, taxes, and tolls on an average per vehicle basis.  


 
Travel Characteristics - Charges, Fees, Tolls

Charge per Veh Mile Average vehicle fees on a per mile basis, such as road user charges or mileage-based user fee.

Charges per Veh Trip Average vehicle tolls and fees on a per trip basis.

For transit modes, these tolls are assumed to be passed on directly to the passenger (and thus paid by the passenger as though it were a fee in addition to regular fares). If these charges would be paid by the agency to a road operator, rather than by the traveler to the road operator, they should not be recorded in Travel, but be included in the Costs screen inputs as part of the operating expenses of the mode.

Charge Per Pass Trip Average passenger fees per trip, such as for bus or train fares.

Charge Per Pass Mile Average passenger per-mile fees, such as fares paid to some TNCs, taxis, and other on-demand transportation.

Remember to press the save button prior to leaving this screen.

Remember to press the save button prior to leaving this screen.

Travel Characteristics - Other Tab

This tab is for safety incidents – fatalities, injuries, and vehicles associated with crashes – and adjustments.

 
Travel Characteristics - Other


Fatality Accidents per 100m VMT This field contains the default number of fatal accidents estimated for each 100 million miles (or appropriate unit of measure for your country) travelled

Personal Injury Accidents per 100m VMT Similarly, this field contains the default number of personal injury accidents estimated for each 100 million miles (or appropriate unit of measure for your country) travelled

Crash-Involved Vehicles per 100m VMT Number of crashes per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. This is only available when the Crash Entry Method (in the Preferences window) is set to Crash-Involved Vehicles.

Crashes per 100m VMT Number of crashes per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. This is only available when the Crash Entry Method (in the Preferences window) is set to Crashes.

Fraction of Pavement in Poor Condition Fraction (0 to 1) of the road facility that is in "poor" condition. Penalty ratios associated with poor pavement can be adjusted in Modes > Adjust Mode Factors > Fuel Consumption and Modes > Adjust Mode Factors > Other Cost.

Fraction of Hours Traveled with Adjusted VOT Fraction (0 to 1) of travel time whose value of time needs to be adjusted (depending on the mode, vehicle hours or in-vehicle passenger hours). The penalty ratio can be adjusted in Modes > Adjust Mode Factors > Fuel Consumption and Modes > Adjust Mode Factors > Other Cost.

Remember to press the save button prior to leaving this screen.

Travel Characteristics - Travel Cost Override

TREDIS is flexible, allowing you to use your own travel cost values instead of using the values that TREDIS can calculate for you. This is an option for users with more comprehensive travel demand models.

This option is not available for O-D Based Projects.

When you click the 'Set to Override Mode' at the bottom of the screen to set the system for Override Mode, you will see a warning message telling you that your Travel Inputs are no longer being used.

Override Warning


Travel Cost fields:

Travel Characteristics - Travel Override


Passenger Cost Total costs due to travelling passengers

Crew Cost  Total Crew costs (drivers and other workers)

Freight Cost Total cost of moving of freight

Reliability Cost  Total cost of reliability

Veh Operating Cost Total vehicle operating costs

Toll Cost Total of all tolls incurred for this mode

Safety Cost Total cost of safety

Environmental Cost Total cost of emissions

Remember to press the save button prior to leaving this screen.



Travel Flow fields:

Travel Characteristics - Override Flow


Fraction of Trips: Internal Internal Trips begin and end within the study region

Fraction of Trips: Incoming Incoming trips begin outside the study region and have their destination in the study region

Fraction of Trips: Outgoing Outgoing trips are essentially exports from the study region, originating within and terminating externally

Fraction of Trips: Through Through trips have both their origin and destinations outside the study region with the vehicles passing through

Remember to press the save button prior to leaving this screen.


Travel Characteristics - Import Travel Data

If you want to load your travel data using a spreadsheet, click on the 'Import Travel Data' button which opens a window that contains a link for downloading a template populated with your project name, earliest operations year, alternatives, region name(s), and modes and purposes.

Use this template to enter travel data for the years you have data. Make sure the worksheet (tab) is labeled "Travel Demand Characteristics".

Travel Characteristics - Travel Upoad


Once you have your data ready, click on the browse button to select your file, and then click the upload button. Your data for all years contained in the spreadsheet will be loaded into the system.

Remember that there must be a tab in the spreadsheet named "Travel Demand Characteristics" and do not add, delete, or reorder the spreadsheet columns.

Travel Characteristics - Freight Logistics

The Freight Logistics button opens a window for editing commodity values. For more information on Freight Logistics, click here.

Travel Characteristics - Freight Logistics


Travel Characteristics - Diagnostics

The Diagnostics page gives you a quick way to check the logic of your model. For many projects, for example, it’s assumed that building the project will increase speeds for facility users. The travel characteristics input into the Travel screen may not reflect that, though, and the Diagnostics page allows you to affirm that the basic dynamics of difference between your base and project alternatives are what you expect them to be.

Changes by Year

Available for Facility Based and O-D Based projects. Changes by year for trips, miles per trip, and speed.

Time Series

Available for O-D Based projects.

Travel Characteristics - Diagnostics


Note that, on this page, all changes are calculated as Project value minus Base value, unlike the reports under the Results page. This is because it’s more intuitive to highlight increases as positives here, especially improvements in speed.

One ton moving 1 mile is equal to 1 "ton-trip."

Time Series

Available for O-D Based projects.

In the top half of the Time Series tab, Change in Passenger and Ton Hours Over Time, see the graph for total changes in Passenger and Ton Hours, summed by Purpose. Toggle whether purposes are shown by clicking on the purpose label at right in the legend.

Travel Characteristics - Diagnostics

In the bottom table, Regional Activity, you can see the total change by Origin and again by Destination. (Notice that both the Origin and Destination sections constitute the total universe of trips, so they cannot be added together, as this will double count all trips.)

The year can be changed using the Data Year drop-down at top left.

Origin-Destination Flows

The Origin-Destination Freight and Origin-Destination Passenger tabs show representations of ton-hours or passenger hours saved by direction of flow, with the origin region to the left and the destination right. Blue lines represent net savings (hours in project alternative are less than in base) and red line represent net increase (hours in project alternative are higher than in base).

Hovering with your cursor over a line shows a pop-up detailing the project, base, and change values for the line, as in the figure.

The Data Year is selected in the drop-down at top left.


TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Travel Characteristics - Trip Balancing

Overview and Context

When the total passenger trips for a given purpose rise between the Base and Project alternative, they are said to need "balancing" to indicate to TREDIS what portion of trips are induced by favorable transportation conditions.

"In-Model" trips represent trips that were undertaken in the Base alternative as well as the Project alternative, and which are assumed to have the same value for the people undertaking them.

"Induced" trips represent new trips undertaken in the Project alternative because travelers found new travel conditions that made a journey worthwhile when they were not in the Base alternative.

TREDIS assumes that the economic conditions are the same in any tested alternatives for a single scenario, so a different level of population and employment should not be the cause of trip "imbalance."

In some cases, a change in the number of trips between Base and Project alternatives is represented by in-model changes or a change in what inputs represent.

For example, if journeys made as one trip in the Base alternative are reported as two in the Project alternative – for instance, if a single bus trip now includes a transfer – the difference in the number of trips should be considered "in-model" because they don’t represent new journeys.

Another case where differences might be in-model are in mode switching. If some percentage of commuters that drive have switched to bus, the number of bus passenger trips is likely to have risen, but the difference is "in-model" since only the mode has changed.

Induced trips are journeys that were not available or feasible in the Base alternative. For example, if highway speeds have improved due to an additional lane in the Project alternative, more trips may be undertaken versus the number in the Base alternative because of the marginal cost in time.

Differences in trip counts due to technical constraints in a microsimulation model should be handled before TREDIS rather than by the Trip Balancing window.

The Trip Balancing Window

To launch the Trip Balancing window, click on the Trip Balancing button at the bottom of the Travel screen (see Figure 1 below).

The Travel screen in Figure 1 shows increases in total trips between the Base alternative and the Project alternative. The occupancy rates (on the following tab) for all modes and purposes have been set to 1.0 to simplify the example, so that vehicle trips are equal to person trips.

The Trip Balancing button is orange because it needs attention.
Travel Characteristics - Required
Figure 1: Travel Screen


In Figure 1, the number of Business trips rises from the Base alternative to the Project alternative by a total of 500. Dividing by the number of Base alternative Business trips, TREDIS finds a 0.5 percent increase (500/10,000). Though there are two modes used for Commute – Electric Car and Passenger Car – they are considered together for purposes of Commute travel, which in total rises 1 percent (change in total commute trips divided by over total commute trips in Base alternative, or 100,000/10,000,000), while total Personal travel has risen by 2 percent.

In Figure 2, "50%" in the Overall % Induced column has been entered by the user to indicate that half of new traffic – any increase, regardless of purpose – is considered induced. This will be applied to each of the four modes shown in the other columns during Run Results.

Trip Balancing Overview
Figure 2: Trip Balancing Overview


Figure 3 shows how, by toggling to Override by Purpose, the induced percentage can be set separately by year for each purpose (Business, Commute, Personal, and Freight), though in this case there is only 1 year.

: Trip Balancing - Override by Purpose
Figure 3: : Override by Purpose


By selecting Detailed Yearly Override, you may reach the screen in Figure 4 showing the System Wide Imbalance tab, to see differences by region and period.

Trip Balancing - Detailed Yearly Override
Figure 4: Detailed Yearly Override


In Figure 5, the Regional Imbalance Adjustments subtab opens a table where the percentage of induced activity can be set by purpose, by year, by region and by period (the most granular input structure).

Trip Balancing - Regional Imbalance Adjustments
Figure 5: Regional Imbalance Adjustments




TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Travel Characteristics - Freight Logistics

The Freight Logistics button opens a window for editing commodity mixes, commodity valuation, and key cost factors. Access this functionality by clicking the Freight Logistics button at the bottom of the Travel screen:

Accessing the Freight Logistics Feature
Figure 1: Accessing Freight Logistics

Commodity Mixes

On the Commodity Mixes tab, you can edit the commodity mix for your region across four different directions of travel. Use the dropdown in the top left of the window to toggle between Internal, Incoming, Outgoing, and Through traffic.

Commodity Mixes
Figure 2: Commodity Mixes


Commodity Valuation

On the Commodity Valuation tab, you can edit the time sensitivity of different commodities if you’d like to apply different assumptions than the TREDIS defaults.

Inventory Carrying Cost The $ per ton-hour of holding the inventory due to delays built into their scheduling and late docking fees applied because of trip scheduling
Logistics Reliability Cost The $ per ton-hour of shipments that need to have buffer time
Logistics Delay Cost The $ per ton-hour of logistics due to delays


Commodity Valuation
Figure 3: Commodity Valuation


Costs Summary

Key cost factors are summarized here by mode using the commodity mix for the region for the direction in the drop-down at top left. This data can be used to trace results in the Cost Savings by Type report (in the Tracing/Validation group).

Cost Summary
Figure 4: Cost Summary


TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Travel Characteristics – Safety Incident Counts

On the Other tab, users have the option of entering the rates of incidents – fatalities, injuries and crashes – per 100 vehicle miles travelled. There is an alternate way to enter directly these not as rates but as simple counts.

To access the count view, complete all other data inputs on the Travel page, including entering data for each year you have it for. This ensures that the Safety Incident Counts window will allow you to enter incident counts for those years.

To open the window, click the Enter Safety Incident Counts button.

Basic Safety Incident Counts

Travel Characteristics - Basic Safety Incidents Count


On the resulting Basic Safety Incidents Counts window, you can enter incident counts for KABCO severity of fatalities (or "K") and injuries ("A", "B", "C", and "O") where severity counts are known, for each alternative, region, and segment combination. Additionally, you may enter counts for severity "U" when injuries are estimated or observed but where the severity is unknown.

Depending on how you have set the Crash Entry Method in the Preferences window, either the Crash-Involved Vehicles or Crashes column will be available for input.

Travel Characteristics - Basic Safety Incidents Count

After clicking Save for any data entered, clicking the Go To Advanced button will take this data and attribute data to specific mode-purpose combinations and open the Advanced Safety Incidents Counts window.

Clicking Discard Counts and Use Incident Rates will discard the data entirely.

If you simply click Close, you will return to the Travel page and the project will use these Basic Incident Safety Counts unless you return to this window and click Discard Counts or Go To Advanced.

Advanced Safety Incident Counts

The Advanced Safety Incident Counts window is very similar to the Basic Safety Incident Counts window, but allows you to adjust counts for individual mode-purpose combinations where they are known. When first deployed, the window will pre-populate the counts based on any data entered in the Basic Safety Incident Counts window and the underlying Incident Rates that are given on the Travel page.

After clicking Save for any data entered, clicking the Go To Basic button to discard any Advanced Data entered and return to using the Basic Safety Incident Counts.

Clicking Discard Counts and Use Incident Rates will discard the data for both Basic and Advanced and return to using the default Incident Rates provided in the Travel page.

If you simply click Close, you will return to the Travel page and the project will use these Advanced Incident Safety Counts unless you return to this window and click Discard Counts or Go To Basic.

Travel Characteristics - Basic Safety Incidents Count


TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Market Access

Intercity Market Access

What is Market Access? When is it Relevant?
The primary benefits of transportation investments are expressed in terms of time, cost and/or safety moving between trip origins and destinations. However, there can be wider economic benefits when businesses gain access to broader labor, customer and/or supplier markets. (These effects increase productivity through "agglomeration economies" by increasing scale economies of production, matching of specialized worker skills to business needs or matching of specialized business products or services to customer needs.) TREDIS is unique in recognizing three spatial ranges of market access effects.
  • Local market access focuses on urban-scale labor markets and consumer markets – which largely occur within a travel time range of up to one hour each way.
  • Regional market access focuses on same-day freight deliveries and same-day tourism – which largely occur within ranges of up to three hours* each way. It can also generate "mega-region economic integration" benefits by connecting regions that have complementary industries.
  • Intermodal connectivity focuses on the ability to access airports, rail terminals, and marine ports – which are gateways to even broader national and international markets for people and freight.
TREDIS recognizes research showing local market effects decay over a 40-60 minute range, while regional market effects decay over a 2 - 4 hour range.


Not all projects or programs will have market access benefits. In general, they occur when there is a new or substantially improved network connection between population and business centers, or expanded modal options, or a shift to higher density development. Use the test below to see if any of these conditions apply. A typical corridor project will address at most just one or two of these categories.

Access Test: Check box if any of these situations apply for your proposed project or program
Anticipated access change Check if applicable
  1. Local access: A corridor investment will connect a city to outlying areas, increasing the population within commuting range of the city and vice versa (connecting at least 15,000 people in outlying areas).
   
  1. Regional access: A corridor investment will enlarge the same-day travel and delivery market surrounding an employment center (adding at least 20,000 population or a business base of over 10,000 workers to that market).
   
  1. Air terminal connectivity: A corridor investment will shorten average travel time from a city to a major airport (by at least 15 minutes).
   
  1. Freight rail terminal connectivity: A corridor investment will shorten average travel time from a city to a TOFC/COFC terminal (by at least 10%).
   
  1. Passenger rail terminal connectivity: A corridor investment will shorten average travel time to an intercity rail terminal (by at least 15 minutes).
   
  1. Marine port connectivity: A corridor investment will shorten average travel time from a city to a major marine port (by at least 10% minutes).
   
  1. Statewide or Areawide Plan: A program will expand access to public transportation access (ridership increase >10%), or provide incentive for denser development or reduced congestion (resulting in >10% increase in employment within 60 minutes)
   


If at least one of the rows is checked in the preceding test, then proceed to the three steps described below. (step 1) define study regions as appropriate to capture connectivity changes, (step 2) define spatial links between regions, and the associated cities and intermodal terminals being connected, (3) input information on the extent to which local, regional or intermodal access will be expanded. The third step will normally require a highway network model to calculate changes in travel times and zones accessible within various travel time thresholds.

Step 1: Define Study Regions. Make sure study regions are appropriately defined to capture market access gains. This depends on the type of analysis; either: (A) corridor project or (B) statewide plan.
  1. Corridor Project. To fully capture market access gains for a highway or rail corridor project, it is necessary to define the regions that will be connected and thus gain expanded access. This is illustrated by the graphic below, which show major endpoint regions being connected (A, C), plus intermediate locations of smaller communities (1, 2 B) that stand to benefit from enhanced links to the major cities. At least two regions are required to cover endpoint areas but it is desirable to include additional regions to also identify intermediate areas of access benefit. (The spatial linkages between these regions will be designated in step 2.) Note: it is possible to model corridor accessibility gains for a single region, though in that case there will be no distinction between the endpoints and intermediate areas, so opportunities for mega-region economic integration will not be identified.

    Market Access


  2. Statewide Plan. For a statewide transportation plan, it is usually desirable to have regions reflecting DOT districts or an equivalent concept which will allow impacts of improving access for rural, isolated parts of the state to be analyzed separately from those occurring in the highly populated, better-connected areas. Note that statewide transportation plans may involve generalized statewide policies or programs that do not involve major new corridor investments, though they can still expand market access. Examples include policies such as statewide enhancement of transit service for rural areas or land use policies to encourage higher density population clusters to develop. If the plan also includes improvements in inter-regional corridors, that can also be recognized in step 2.

Step 2: Define Regional Access Linkages. The "regional access definition" tab reveals an input screen in which to specify the inter-region and intermodal connections being affected. The form is shown below. It shows a map of the regions defined in step 1 (lower left corner), and a form (upper left corner) to input information on the region being linked, key city and intermodal terminal connections. These selections are mapped on the right side.

Note that the input form defining regional connections is pre-populated with default choices, but the analyst one can change them as explained in the text that follows.

Market Access Page


A pull-down menu enables you to select each of the regions, and see the current assumption for its key city and closest major airport, freight rail terminal, passenger rail terminal, and marine port. All of these assumptions can be changed as described below.
  • Major City. For each selected region, the form shows the (city) location from which local market access, regional market access, and intermodal market connectivity are measured. If the region is a single county, it will show the most populous city in that county. If the region is comprised of multiple counties, the form will show the most populous city within the most populous county of that region, with a pulldown menu that allows the analyst to switch to other cities within other counties of the region if desired. If the analysis is for a multi-county corridor, this selection should correspond to the largest city within each region that is being connected by the corridor project.
  • Linked Region (only matters if Access Test #2 is checked). As long as there is a corridor improvement that spans multiple regions, the analyst will need to identify how each region will be connected to another regions with either a larger economy or one with complementary industries, to enable "mega-region economic integration" benefits. Using the prior graphic example, the major endpoints A and C will be linked with each other. Among intermediate areas, 1 will be most directly linked to A, 2 will be most directly linked to C, and the analyst may make Region B most directly linked to either A or B (whichever is larger).

    Market Access - Linked Region


    Note: Then the linked region entry can remain blank if the analysis is for a local project within a single region (Access Test #1 is checked) or it is for a statewide plan with no major corridor improvement (Access Test #7 is checked). In those cases, the economic model will default to existing spatial economic relationships and assume that no impact on "mega region economic integration".
  • Airport (only matters if Access Test #3 is checked). For each selected region, this shows the (medium- large) airport that is closest to the most populous city in the most populous county in the region, along with a pulldown showing other airports close to counties within the region. If the proposed project or plan involves improving connectivity to any of those airports instead of the default choice, the analyst should switch to the applicable other airport.
  • Freight Rail Container Terminal (only matters if Access Test #4 is checked). This indicates the intermodal TOFC/COFC freight rail terminal that is closest to the most populous city in the most populous county in the region, along with a pulldown showing other intermodal TOFC/COFC terminals close to counties within the region. This only matters if box If the proposed project or plan involves improving connectivity to any of those other freight rail terminals instead of the default choice, the analyst should switch to the applicable other intermodal freight terminal.
  • Passenger Rail Terminal (only matters if Access Test #5 is checked). This indicates the passenger rail terminal that is closest to the most populous city in the most populous county in the region, along with a pulldown showing other passenger rail terminals serving counties within the region. If the proposed project or plan involves improving connectivity to any of those other terminals instead of the default choice, the analyst should switch to the applicable other passenger terminal.
  • Marine Port (only matters if Access Test #6 is checked). This indicates the marine port that is closest to the most populous city in the most populous county in the region, along with a pulldown showing other ports serving counties within the region. If the proposed project or plan involves improving connectivity to any of those other ports, the analyst should switch to the applicable other port.


Step 3: Input Changes in Market Access. The "inputs" tab reveals a form for the analyst to enter access characteristics for each region, under both a base case scenario and a project/program implementation scenario. The required data is explained below.
Market Access - INput Changes
  • All measures are based on highway network data for road (car/truck/bus) travel times.
  • The Local Market and Regional Market access measures normally requires a network simulation model, utilizing skim trees to identify all traffic zones (and their associated population or employment base) reachable within various time thresholds from each zone’s designated city/ town center. This designated city/town was identified in step 2. (There are multiple time bands to enable impact decay functions, whereby local market access effects decay over a 40-60 minute range, while regional market access effects decay over a 2-4 hour range. See documentation for published research supporting these decay patterns.)
  • The Access Time to airport, rail terminals and marine ports are normally calculated by a highway network model to calculate the shortest time path from each zone’s designated city/ town center to the designated terminal (identified in step 2).
  • Important Note: TREDIS automatically fills in values for the Base Case scenario, though the analyst may substitute their own base case inputs as desired. Inputs for the Project/ Program Implementation scenario should match the Base Case except where changes are to be expected. In other words,
    • Local Market inputs should only change when Access Test #1 or #7 is checked.
    • Regional Market inputs should only change when Access Test #2 of #7 is checked.
    • Air terminal connectivity should only change when Access Test #3 is checked.
    • Freight Rail terminal connectivity should only change when Access Test #4 is checked.
    • Passenger Rail terminal connectivity should only change when Access Test #5 is checked.
    • Marine Port terminal connectivity should only change when Access Test #6 is checked.


TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results

Before running your analysis to generate results, please review the default settings and make adjustments as desired. Note, the analysis takes a few moments to run.  TREDIS saves your results and will show them without needing to run the analysis again unless you change a value in the settings on this screen or go back to your project and change other inputs.
 
After running your analysis, there are additional settings for running Freight Projects. Please view the TREDIS for Transearch or vFreight Help pages for setting up and running the appropriate Freight Analyses.

The results navigation bar allows you to switch between report categories or go back to settings to change the parameters used in the analysis.

Description of Results Tabs


Results - Economic Impacts1
The Settings tab allows for defining the analysis parameters and running the analysis.
The Summary tab presents a graphical snapshot of your project results.
The Economic Impact tab provides details on the jobs, wages, business output, and value showing the economic impact as a result of your project.
The Benefit-Cost tab provides details on the present value of the benefits and costs, benefit-cost ratios, environmental factors, performance metrics and the grant report for use in completing TIGER applications.
The Financial Impact tab contains information on tax impacts, cost & revenue sharing, and investment return analyses.
The Tracing and Validation tab provides details supporting the other reports in the system.
Freight
For accounts with one of the freight options, this tab will provide analysis results. To view the help for these options - click on one of the following two links:




TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results - Settings

Before running your analysis to generate results, please review the default settings and make adjustments as desired. Note, the analysis takes a few moments to run. TREDIS saves your results and will show them without needing to run the analysis again unless you change a value in the settings on this screen or go back to your project and change other inputs.

After running your analysis, there are additional settings for running Freight Projects. Please view the TREDIS with Transearch or TREDIS with vFreight Help pages for setting up and running the appropriate Freight Analyses. The results navigation bar allows you to switch between report categories or go back to settings to change the parameters used in the analysis.

Review and if desired change the default settings for running your analysis, then press the Run Analysis button. Anytime you make a chance to the settings or any inputs on the prior screens, you will need to rerun your analysis. Once finished, you are brought to the Summary screen.

Results - Settings Screen

 

Settings

Interpolation Method This feature is used when TREDIS needs to compute travel characteristics values for year in which no user input is provided. The user may select from the dropdown menu using Compound Annual Growth rate or a straight line growth rate.

Charge Interpolation Select whether to use the selected interpolation method for charges entered in the Travel screen or not use any interpolation (step function of charges).

Depreciation Type Users may select whether to use a One-Time Project level depreciation method, where depreciation is computed for all project costs at once, or taking depreciation as an Annual Program, computing depreciation for each investment separately.

B/C Perspective Select your analysis perspective: by Study Region or at a National level.

Safety Economic Impact Select Include if you want the Economic Impact Analysis to include impacts from changes in Safety, or Exclude otherwise. (The impacts from Safety are calculated separately from Safety benefits as reported in the Benefit-Cost Analysis, which are always reported.)



Revert Settings
Resets the change made in the settings so the analysis will not need to be run again.

Costs of Emissions by Year
Opens a window allowing the update of default emissions costs for the project by the emissions type by year.

Once you have selected your settings, press the Run Analysis button.  A popup indicator will appear to let you monitor the analysis progress.  The process will take a few moments, but once completed you will be able to select from the various tabs and quickly see your results. 

The first screen shown after the analysis is completed, is the summary tab which presents a story of what changes were made to the transportation system and how they impact the economy.

TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Freight Analysis - Settings - Using Transearch

Running Freight projects involves two steps. The first deals with analyzing the economic, benefit cost, and financial impacts, along with the tracing and validation results. After this analysis has been completed, the Freight Analysis is run to provide access to the freight results using the Transearch(R).

Before running your analysis to generate results, please review the default settings and make adjustments as desired. Note, the analysis takes a few moments to run.  TREDIS saves your results and will show them without needing to run the analysis again unless you change a value in the settings on this screen or go back to your project and change other inputs.
 
Results - Settings - Transearch
For help on the standard settings, please refer to the help screen for settings by clicking on the gear icon: Results - Settings

 

Area Type for Transearch commodity mix selection TREDIS needs to know if you are analyzing at the region, truck route, or rail route level when assigning the commodity mix to the project.

Once you have selected your settings, press the Run Analysis button.  A popup indicator will appear to let you monitor the analysis progress.  The process will take a few minutes, but once completed you will be able to select from the various tabs and quickly see your results. 

The first screen shown after the analysis is completed, is the summary tab which presents a story of what changes were made to the transportation system and how they impact the economy:

Summary Results

View results or Run Freight analysis

You may now review the economic, benefit-cost, and financial impact results or you may go back to the settings screen - click on the gear icon, to run the freight analysis.

You will notice that the Run Analysis button has turned blue indicating that the analysis has completed and the Run Freight is yellow indicating this analysis still needs to be run.

Please review and change the following settings for running you freight analysis:

Area Type for Transearch freight run TREDIS needs to know if you want your freight analysis to consider the region, the specified truck route, or specified rail route level when analyzing the freight portion of the project.

Select years to analyze This drop down menu allows you to select the specific years for which you wish to see results. You have the option to select all years or select specific years by checking the box next to the desired year(s). Note - the more years selected the longer this analysis will take to run.

Enable ReWeight Check this box to have the system consider consumption and production levels of trading partners relative to each other as part of the freight analysis.


Once you have specified the settings for the freight analysis, press the Run Freight button. Once completed, you will again be left on the summary screen, but will now have access to your freight results.

TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Freight Analysis - Settings - Using vFreight

Running Freight projects involves two steps. The first deals with analyzing the economic, benefit cost, and financial impacts, along with the tracing and validation results. After this analysis has been completed, the Freight Analysis is run to provide access to the freight results using the vFreight data.

Before running your analysis to generate results, please review the default settings and make adjustments as desired. Note, the analysis takes a few moments to run.  TREDIS saves your results and will show them without needing to run the analysis again unless you change a value in the settings on this screen or go back to your project and change other inputs.
 

Results - Settings - vFreight

For help on the standard settings, please refer to the help screen for settings by clicking on the gear icon: Results - Settings

Once you have selected your settings, press the Run Analysis button.  A popup indicator will appear to let you monitor the analysis progress.  The process will take a few minutes, but once completed you will be able to select from the various tabs and quickly see your results. 

The first screen shown after the analysis is completed, is the summary tab which presents a story of what changes were made to the transportation system and how they impact the economy:



View results or Run Freight analysis

You may now review the economic, benefit-cost, and financial impact results or you may go back to the settings screen - click on the gear icon, to run the freight analysis.

You will notice that the Run Analysis button has turned blue indicating that the analysis has completed and the Run Freight is yellow indicating this analysis still needs to be run.

Please review and change the following settings for running you freight analysis:

Select years to analyze This drop down menu allows you to select the specific years for which you wish to see results. You have the option to select all years or select specific years by checking the box next to the desired year(s). Note - the more years selected the longer this analysis will take to run.

Enable ReWeight Check this box to have the system consider consumption and production levels of trading partners relative to each other as part of the freight analysis.

Enable Empties Check this box to include the effects of empty/back haul vehicles in the analysis


Once you have specified the settings for the freight analysis, press the Run Freight button. Once completed, you will again be left on the summary screen, but will now have access to your freight results.

TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results Summary

After the analysis is finished, results are stored for the project and may be viewed. The Summary tab is the first screen shown and the landing tab for visiting the Results screen.

The default is to look at the results for the last year of operations and to view the total impact. The two dropdown menus allow you to change the year and to view the individual results for construction, operational, contingent development or market access.



Travel Impact
The bars in this graph indicate whether trips, vehicle miles traveled, and vehicle hours traveled rose or fell between the base and project alternatives. If, for example, trips rose, it means there are more trips in the base than in the project.

Societal Benefit
Shows the changes in benefits due to the project broken out by traveler benefits, environmental social benefits, and wider economic benefits.

Economic Impact
Shows the change in Gross Regional Product (GRP) with a breakdown of by top industry sectors.

Jobs by Year
Shows the changes in number of jobs over time along with percent of jobs with above average wages.


TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results - Economic Impact

TREDIS allows you to filter your results using the drop down menu controls at the top of many of the economic impact results screens. Note that not all controls appear on each results screen.

Impact Type
The Impact type menu allows you to view the total impacts or filter the results to view only construction, operational, contingent development, or market access impacts.
Economic Activity
This control allows you to adjust the results view to look at the comparison between project versus base, the base results, or the project results.
Industry Aggregation
The Industry Aggregation menu allows you to adjust the industry details viewed in the results:
  • Major Industry Class - 14 Sectors provides the highest level summary.
  • Standard Results Format - 53 Sectors breaks down the industries to a higher level of detail
  • Detail Report Format - 86 Sectors increases the level of detail
  • Full Details - 544 Sectors - shows the data using all 544 sectors.
Note - the larger the number of sectors the longer the report. It is recommended to use the smallest value first and then change the settings as desired to zoom in on the industry detail desired.
Occupational Aggregation
The Occupational Aggregation menu allows you to adjust the details viewed in the results at the 2, 3, or 4 digit occupational code level.

Graphics

The Economic Impact tab opens with a summary graphic showing for the sum of all regional jobs, business output, value added, and wage income by year:
 
Results - Economic Impact2

Interactive feature: Toggle on and off metrics to show by clicking on them in the legend.


Results - Economic Impact3

Interactive feature: Click on a data point to reveal an industry disaggregation.

Results - Economic Impact4

Clicking on this data point will open a graph showing by-industry breakdown of the metric (in this case, jobs). This view begins with the top five industry sectors, which may be changed using the drop-down menu under the graph title.


Results - Economic Impact5

Total by Industry

This interactive report presents the economic impacts of the project by year and for all regions in the project.

The number of industries is determined by the Results control panel option Industry Aggregation. The NAICS codes associated with them are provided.

Core metrics of Business Output, Value Added, and Labor Income are in millions.

Total by Occupation

This matrix provides a profile of the occupational type of jobs that are being generated by the project. This type of information is important for economic developers. Much like industry, you can change the level of aggregation reported with an option on the Results control panel, Occupational Aggregation. Occupation codes are SOC codes.

Core metrics of Business Output, Value Added, and Labor Income are in millions.

Quality of Jobs

The Quality of Jobs report shows characteristics of the jobs created by the project, with details categorizing occupations by wage criteria (High Wage, Medium Wage, Low Wage) and whether jobs in in each category are growing or not.

By clicking on the tabs above the graph, you can toggle between viewing Quality of Jobs as a chart or table.
  • Not Growing means an occupation is projected to grow less than 0.5% annually.
  • Growing, Unstable means an occupation is growing but turnover is relatively high.
  • Growing, Stable means an occupation have relatively less turnover.
The growth benchmark of 0.5% annual growth is set by research into the projected 2018-2028 growth trends. For context, no-growth occupations employed 36.1 million workers in 2018.

The stability benchmark is set around a premium of 25% more openings per year than the average occupation (after accounting for openings occurring from overall growth). The average turnover has been calculated as 11.7%, so the threshold for being considered unstable is 14.6% turnover. Higher than this threshold is considered unstable, and below is considered stable.

Productivity

Productivity shows changes in Value Added across industries.
Value Added per worker grows as cost savings is retained as profit or is spent on additional Labor Income which increases Value Added. These gains are calculated into weighted average values for aggregated industries (such as 3-digit NAICS). This may increase or decrease actual productivity depending on the 1) mix of industries, 2) their associated productivity, and 3) the gains in productivity due to travel cost savings.

Competitiveness

The first three columns show the input intensity show the ratio of output per unit cost of labor, capital, and transportation in comparison to the national average. The fourth column lists the Relative Labor Cost per worker and fifth column shows the Output Growth rate of the previous 5 years compared to the U.S. average.

Supply/Demand

In addition to the regional and yearly breakdowns, this report shows industry aggregations based on the Industry Aggregation option in the Results control panel.

Pop / Labor

TREDIS calculates the expected impacts on population and the labor force within the study region(s) by year and by industry aggregation. For each region-year report, three panes are available: For more information please refer to the TREDIS 5 Dynamic Regional Economic Simulation Model document in User Documentation.

TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results - Benefit-Cost

Graphics

The Benefit-Cost tab starts on the Graphics sub-tab, which shows a chart for the different components of the Benefit-Cost analysis.

The Graphics and Benefit-Cost tabs present three different groupings of benefits with the Societal benefit encompassing total benefits. The following sections explain the benefit groupings and their components in detail.
 

Traveler Benefit

Traveler Benefit represents benefits to travelers and the businesses that employee them. It is the most narrowly focused of the 3 types of benefit tabulations.
  • Business Time & Reliability Cost
  • Value of Personal Time & Reliability
  • Consumer Surplus
  • Vehicle Operating Costs
  • Safety Costs

User Benefit

User Benefit represents benefits to travelers (and their employers) but also includes Logistics Costs, which represent the cost of managing freight.

Societal Benefit

The Societal Benefit tabulation includes all of the traveler and user benefits, but also incorporates externalities. The full list of categories considered is as follows:
  • Business Time & Reliability Cost (from Traveler Benefit)
  • Value of Personal Time & Reliability (from Traveler Benefit)
  • Consumer Surplus (from Traveler Benefit)
  • Vehicle Operating Costs (from Traveler Benefit)
  • Safety Costs (from Traveler Benefit)
  • Logistics Costs (from User Benefit)
  • Business Productivity (unique to Societal Benefit)
  • Social (including Environmental benefits/disbenefits) (unique to Societal Benefit)

Costs

Cost categories in TREDIS represent direct, monetized costs of designing, building, and maintaining infrastructure, summarized in the following categories:
  • Construction
  • Operations & Maintenance
  • Residual

Using the Graphics Tab

Because Traveler Benefit, User Benefit, and Societal Benefit cover similar categories, you may choose to toggle off one or two benefit bars of the tabulations if they aren’t relevant to your analysis.

Interactive feature: Toggle on and off metrics by clicking on them in the legend. For example, User Benefit and Societal Benefit may be toggled off to see only Traveler Benefit and Costs.
 

 
Interactive feature: Click on a Benefit bar reveal a disaggregation by category. Clicking on the Traveler Benefit bar above, for example, shows the breakdown between categories:
 

 
Interactive feature: Click on the Costs bar to reveal a disaggregation by Costs categories:
 

 
Interactive feature: Update the Discount Rate and click Refresh to change the discount rate for all measures.
 

 

Benefit-Cost Overview

The Benefit-Cost Overview tab shows a tabulation of Benefit-Cost Analysis results for the discount rates selected in Results settings. As with all similar tables, clicking the blue arrow on the left expands the selected category.
 

 
All values are in present values (discounted) terms, in millions of dollars.

See the Benefit-Cost FAQ for details on the signs of Benefit and Cost categories.

Present Value of Benefits Stream

This table drills down into the various categories of net benefits that a project or policy change can bring about.
  • Benefit Stream – Travel Benefits
  • These benefits are associated with travelers and traveling, including categories for time savings and safety as well as vehicle operating costs.
  • Benefit Stream – Environmental and Social Benefits
  • These benefits are associated with environmental effects, greenhouse gas production, and other social benefits as defined by user.
  • Benefit Stream – Wider Economic Benefits
  • These are benefits associated strictly with business productivity, labor market participation, and logistics and supply chain savings.
  • Benefit Stream – Transfer Benefit Effects.
  • These benefits specifically deal with adjustments due to fees, for example fees, tolls, or other user charges.

Present Value of Costs Stream

The next section addresses the Present Value of Cost Stream, detailing Project Costs and Cost Adjustments.
  • Costs Stream – Project Costs
  • These costs represent actual design, capital spending, and operational and ongoing maintenance costs associated with the project.
  • Costs Stream – Cost Adjustments
  • These costs are often residual values of capital, following its use for the project.

Net Benefit

Three kinds of BCA analysis are calculated here.
  • Transportation System Efficiency: Traveler Benefits Only
  • Traveler Benefit minus Present Value of Costs Stream
  • Traditional BCA: Traveler Benefit + Economic Benefits
  • Traveler Benefit plus Wider Economic Benefit minus Present Value of Costs Stream
  • Full Societal BCA: All Benefits Categories
  • Traveler Benefit plus Wider Economic Benefit plus Environmental and Social Benefit, minus Present Value of Costs Stream.
  • Benefit Cost Ratio
  • See the section above for the meaning of Transportation System Efficiency, Traditional BCA, and Full Societal BCA. Here, those benefit categories are divided by the Present Value of Costs Stream for a ratio.

Value of Benefits

This tab shows the benefit values by type by year for two different discount rates or undiscounted. These categories are the same as presented in the Graphics page, but grouped A through E, depending on the type and whether the benefit is monetized or non-monetized.

The left tab provides aggregations by year while the right tab provides aggregations by mode-purpose.

Interactive feature: Dynamically set the discount rate with the drop down.
 

 
Monetized benefits include expenditures or savings on vehicle operating costs, and represent actual money transfers. Whereas externalities (safety and the environment) are monetized to capture the full range of benefits, even though these benefits only represent an approximate measure of value.

For example, vehicle operating costs include user expenditures on fuel, maintenance (tires, brakes, etc.), and vehicle depreciation per mile. On the other hand, reduced commute times benefit users, and are monetized to capture the total benefit to society of the project (relative to the cost), despite no monetary transfer to the commuter.

As elsewhere, keep in mind that Benefits refers both to positive benefits and negative (dis)benefits.

All figures are in millions of dollars. The categories are monetized unless noted otherwise.
  1. Traveler Benefits
    1. Vehicle Operating Costs
    2. Business Time & Reliability Costs
  2. Traveler Benefits (non-monetized)
    1. Value of Personal Time & Reliability
    2. Safety Cost
    3. Additional Consumer Surplus
  3. Shipper/Logistics Cost
  4. Business Productivity
  5. Social/Environ. (non-monetized benefits)

Cost and Net Benefits

The graphs and tables of the Cost and Net Benefits tab show the gradual accumulation of benefits and costs, making it simple to find the year a project breaks even. The default format is a chart, but other formats can be selected via the dropdown menu at top left.

Chart View

The line chart shows the cumulative costs and benefits. Two discount rates are shown by default.
 

 
Interactive feature: Clicking on the metric descriptions in the legend toggles them on or off.

By toggling off the metrics showing Benefits at 7% and Costs at 7%, we can see just the rates for 3%. Then, hovering over the line for benefits, we can see individual year values.

This is often useful for quickly identifying the year that cumulative benefits overtake cumulative costs.
 

Table Views

Selecting a Discount Rate (or Undiscounted) in the drop-down menu in the upper left corner presents the data as a table.
 

 

Project Costs

  • Startup Costs include the construction, capital, and design costs.
  • O&M Costs are the recurring costs of yearly operations and maintenance.
  • Residual Value costs are negative because they return value beyond the analysis horizon, similar to a benefit (e.g. a bridge doesn’t disappear at the end of the analysis period and continues to function).
    • This explains why, for example, there is a small drop in cumulative costs in the graph above at the very end of the project, when residual values are accounted for.
  • Total Costs sums the previous rows.

Project Benefits

This column summarizes the benefits disaggregated in other reports.

Net Total Benefits

This column simply shows Total Benefits minus Total Costs.

Environmental

Environmental impacts include impacts from volatile organic compounds (VOC), NOx, SO2, particulate matter (PM 2.5), and CO2. TREDIS estimates costs of emissions of PM 2.5, or particulate matter 2.5 microns or smaller.

Tabs under the Environmental show emissions by year in metric tons, the value of emissions by year, and the value of emissions by mode-purpose.

For the value reports, the drop-down menu in the upper left allows you to choose a discount rate.

As with other benefits and savings in TREDIS, the environmental benefit may be negative to represent a disbenefit due to more pollutants.

Grant Report

The Grant Report collates information from several sources to facilitate TREDIS reporting for grant applications.

Benefit-Cost Summary

Source: Benefit – Cost > Graphics In Graphics, the details are available by clicking interactive graph.>/p>

Project's Impact on Travel Characteristics

Source: Tracing/Validation > Change in Travel Characteristics Note these are summed across regions.

BENEFIT-COST RESULTS - BY YEAR

The following tables are given for each of the two discount rates chosen in Results Settings (often 7% and 3%).
  • Value of Benefit Stream
    • Source: Benefit – Cost > Value of Benefits
    • Unless otherwise noted, the columns are in undiscounted amounts.
  • Project's Net Benefits
    • Source: Benefit – Cost > Cost and Net Benefit
    • Unless otherwise noted, the columns are in undiscounted amounts.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

  • Amount of Emissions By Year (Tons)
    • Source: Benefit – Cost > Amount of Emissions By Year (Tons)
  • Value of Emissions By Mode ($)
    • Source: Benefit – Cost > Value of Emissions By Mode. The columns are in undiscounted amounts.

BCA ASSUMPTIONS

  • Value of Time, Per Vehicle Cost Factors, Environmental Cost
    • Source: Modes screen > Adjust Mode Factors dialog

      The fixed factors in this table can be viewed and set on the Modes screen by clicking on the Adjust Mode Factors button (bottom right).

      The values are repeated for Base and Project simply to show they do not change between them; in TREDIS these factors are all the same between the base and project alternatives.
  • Travel Demand
    • Source: Travel screen inputs
  • Startup Costs
    • Source: Costs screen inputs (Advanced Mode) These costs are summed across all years.
  • Annual O&M Costs
    • Source: Costs screen inputs (Advanced Mode) These costs are summed across all years.

Benefits per Unit

The Benefits per Unit report demonstrates the benefits per unit of construction for projects where users have entered data in the Quantities and Unit Costs window of the Costs page.

Benefit_per_unit_Improvement
  • Units shows the change in the units built between alternatives (Project alternative minus Base alternative).
  • Benefit per Unit shows the total benefits of the project divided by the number of units of changes.
    • Note: The numbers in this column should not be added together, since the total benefit is used as the dividend in each row. Each row represents how the benefits could be attributed to the improvement as if it were the only improvement.

Benefits per Trip

The Benefit per Trip report shows change in benefits per trip -- passenger trips for passenger modes (including Personal, Commute, and Business purposes) and vehicle trips for Freight purposes. When represented as a benefit per trip, it is easier to represent the user experience and understand whether it is improving from the Base to Project alternative.

For these calculations, induced trips’ full cost is counted. (Compare with the calculations for Induced Benefit, where only half the benefit is assumed to be enjoyed by consumers, since that calculation is for the user benefit.)

Dropdown menus allow you to change the year calculated (including an option for all years, "Cumulative"), as well as the discount rate.
  • Change in Benefit per Trip shows whether the benefits per trip are improving in the Project alternative. For example, if the cost per trip is $3.00 in the Base alternative and $2.00 in the Project alternative for a mode, the Change in Benefit per Trip would be $1.00, because each trip enjoys a $1 in the Project alternative.
  • Change in Trips shows the change in trips in the Project alternative. This is calculated by subtracting Project trips from Base trips, so a negative number means there are more trips in the Project alternative. For example, if there are 100,000 trips in the Base alternative and 200,000 in the Project alternative, the Change in Trips would be -100,000 to show that trips increased.
  • Change in Total Benefits shows the change in total benefits in the Project alternative compared to the Base alternative.
Benefit_Cost_Benefits_per_Trip

 

TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results - Financial Impact

Graphics Tab

The Financial Impacts tab opens with a summary graphic showing revenues and expenditures as a bar chart, with a line showing the net revenue on a year-by-year basis.
 


Clicking on a revenue bar shows the detailed breakout of impacts due to federal and state/local taxes, broken out by households and businesses.
 


Likewise, clicking on a cost bar shows the detailed breakout of expenditure impacts for the project.
 

Revenues Tab

Under the Revenues tab, select a Region and Year to see projected revenues. Like other matrix tables, clicking the plus or minus sign in the upper left will expand or collapse all rows, and clicking the Excel symbol in the upper right will export the data shown as a spreadsheet that can be saved.

Impact Type
The Impact type menu allows you to view the total impacts or filter the results to view only construction, operational, contingent development, or market access impacts.
Cash Flow
This control allow you to select with real or Nominal (Future $) for Cash Flow.
Inflation Rate
This control allow you to change the inflation rate used in your analysis.


Note that Sales Tax is NA under the Household and Business disaggregate columns because the foundational IMPLAN data underlying TREDIS calculations does not provide the incidence split between the two entities.

Cost and Revenue Sharing


Undiscounted Payback Period and Discounted Payback Period show the year that cumulative revenues top cumulative costs. Discounts here are the first discount rate specified on the Results settings page.

TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results - Tracing/Validation

TREDIS allows you to filter your results using the drop down menu controls at the top of many of the Tracing/Validation results screens. Note that not all controls appear on each results screen.

Economic Activity
This control allows you to adjust the results view to look at the comparison between project versus base, the base results, or the project results.
Periods
This control allows you to filter your results for specific periods from your analysis as set on the Timing Screen.
Industry Aggregation
The Industry Aggregation menu allows you to adjust the industry details viewed in the results:
  • Major Industry Class - 14 Sectors provides the highest level summary.
  • Standard Results Format - 53 Sectors breaks down the industries to a higher level of detail
  • Detail Report Format - 86 Sectors increases the level of detail
  • Full Details - 544 Sectors - shows the data using all 544 sectors.
Note - the larger the number of sectors the longer the report. It is recommended to use the smallest value first and then change the settings as desired to zoom in on the industry detail desired.
Impact Type
The Impact type menu allows you to view the total impacts or filter the results to view only construction, operational, contingent development, or market access impacts.

Graphics Tab

Summary of the travel changes in your project. Click on metric in the legend to toggle it on or off.




In the following descriptions, the cost savings in the variable described are reported, not the level itself. So, for example, the Crew Cost line item doesn’t describe the costs of the crew in the Base or Project alternative; the Crew Cost line item is the difference (Base minus Project) between the two alternatives.

Overview of Travel – Primary measures of performance, including miles per trip, minutes per trip, speed, and fraction of miles traveled in congestion.

The dropdown controls at the top left include a Breakdown and a Perspective dropdown. The Breakdown options include By Purpose and By Mode, while the Perspective options include Vehicle or Passenger/Ton Changes in performance metrics between the base and project scenarios by year.


Change in Project Costs - Differences between project costs by facility type, year, and subcategory of cost.

Change in Travel Characteristics - Changes in performance metrics between the base and project scenarios by year.

Clicking on a year expands the table to show the changes in travel characteristics for each mode-purpose combination for that year. This report is helpful to verify that you have entered in your travel data correctly.

Positive numbers indicate savings in trips, mileage, or time saved. That is, the level of the Project alternative is less than the level of the Base alternative. Negative numbers in this report indicate dissavings of these, i.e., an increase in activity.

Cost Savings by Type - Cost savings by mode-purpose combination and type.

To see how the cost savings are allocated across each cost category, click on a specific year. In this expansion view, we see which cost elements are the primary sources of savings in the selected year.



Note that the Safety Cost reported here is a societal benefit, and not the same figure as the Safety impacts reported on the Project Impacts by Industry report. (Those are completely economic benefits and are calculated in a separate procedure.)

Transportation Services Accounting Summary - Accounting for revenues, costs, and driver income for TNC modes.

In the example below, TNC operations are expected to collect $200,000 more in the Project alternative than in the Base alternative.



Of the $200,000, TNC management takes 25% of gross revenues, or $50,000 of revenues. Operating costs ($5,376) are then subtracted from the remainder, and finally Driver Income (via Driver Earnings from Fares) is what remains after operating costs. If the driver is operating at a personal loss for any reason, the improvement or worsening loss of this personal is shown in the line Driver Non-Fare Assets or Income, until the driver is no longer losing money by driving, after which it is reflected in income.

Results from this report inform the Costs Savings by Industry and Project Impacts by Industry reports. Total revenues to drivers and TNC companies are taken out of household or employer budgets.

Cost Savings by Industry - Savings (as shown in Costs Savings by Type) by industry and special aggregate groups (e.g., household).

Positive numbers indicate savings in dollars or time valued in dollars. That is, the level of the Project alternative is less than the level of the Base alternative. Negative numbers in this report indicate dissavings of these, i.e., an increase in money spent (or time valued in dollars).

The bulk of the line items in this report show how savings go to specific industries, defined by NAICS code. You can control the degree of industry detail in the Results screen control panel. (Available via the Gear symbol on the top left once reports have already been run.)

Project Impacts by Industry - Savings here serve as inputs into the economic model and reflected, finally, in the Economic Impact reports (Results screen > Economic Impact tab).

Positive numbers indicate savings in dollars or time valued in dollars. That is, the level of the Project alternative is less than the level of the Base alternative. Negative numbers in this report indicate dissavings of these, i.e., an increase in money spent (or time valued in dollars).

Impacts are summarized by columns describing their source. based on four categories of potential impact sources.

Reallocated items represent a shift of dollars, so there will be an equivalent direct effect of the opposite sign in the economic impact model, leading net impacts to only depend on the different industry mixes of the positive and negative effects and the characteristics of those industries in the regional economy. Not Reallocated items do not represent a shift of dollars, but a single shock with no balancing direct impact of the opposite sign. Because there is no balancing direct effect going into the economic impact model, the effect will be roughly the amount reported plus the effects of the economic simulation.

Market Access Impacts - By Source - Impacts of the market access impacts, tracing the effects of inputs on the Access screen > Market Area Access tab.

Market Access Impacts - By Industry - Impacts from Gross Business Attraction from Market Access Improvement (as described above in Market Access Impacts by Source), but in this report, broken down by industry.


TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results - Equity

The Equity section provides insight regarding the extent of economic hardship (poverty, low income, high unemployment, lack of car ownership) and historically underserved populations (elderly, physical disability, racial/ethnic minority status) among the study regions. This is expressed in terms of both baseline context and project impact.

Equity Context

The Equity Context tab shows current baseline conditions for each study region. This includes rates of economic hardship among each region’s population (poverty, low income, high unemployment, lack of car ownership) and the percentage shares of historically underserved populations (elderly, physical disability, racial/ethnic minority, non-citizen) living in each region. These measures are compared to state and national figures, so you can see how each region compares to wider area averages. This provides baseline insight for interpreting the impact findings presented in the next tab.
Results - Equity Context

Equity – Benefit/Impact Distribution

In addition to simply comparing a project’s regions directly in terms of their populations, the Benefit/Impact Distribution reports show how the benefits and impacts of a project are distributed to the regions, along with some equity measures of interest. In this way, you may quickly see whether the regions that enjoy benefits or impacts are the same regions that may have the greatest need.

Results - Equity Benefit-Impact Distribution

Transportation Benefits

In this report, the distribution of regional benefits reported under Benefit – Cost reports are presented alongside equity measures.

The Results Year drop-down can be used to see specific operations years.

Share of Cost (Cumulative) – Percentage of all costs as entered in the Cost page, summed across all Construction Years

Share of Forecast Population – Percentage of the forecasted population (in the Base alternative) for the Analysis Year

Share of Passenger Savings – Percentage of total savings experienced by modes with a purpose of Business, Personal, or Commute

Share of Freight Savings – Percentage of total savings experienced by modes with Freight purpose

The columns under the Baseline rubric reiterate the equity measures for each region for convenient comparison with shares of savings.

Economic Impacts

Results - Equity Benefit-Impact Distribution_Economic_Impacts


In this report, the distribution of regional economic impacts reported under Economic Impacts reports are presented alongside equity measures.

The Results Year drop-down can be used to see specific operations years.

Share of Cost (Cumulative) – Percentage of all costs as entered in the Cost page, summed across all Construction Years

Share of Forecast Jobs – Percentage of the jobs (in the Base alternative) for the Analysis Year

Share of Job Impacts – Percentage of the change in total jobs that are an impact of the Project alternative in the Analysis Year

Share of Forecast Income – Percentage of the labor income (in the Base alternative) for the Analysis Year

Share of Income Impact – Percentage of the change in total labor income that is an impact of the Project alternative in the Analysis Year

The columns under the Baseline rubric reiterate the equity measures for each region for convenient comparison with shares of savings.

Reference Levels

This report gives context to the Transportation Benefits and Economic Impact reports by showing the distribution for each of the equity variables of interest among the geographic units analyzed.

Results - Equity Benefit-Impact Distribution_Reference_Levels


The Measures shown for the Modeled Regions take each Region defined in the model as an observation. The State and National geographies take each county in the state or the US as the unit of observation.

For each equity measure, three measures are shown:

Top 20th – The cutoff point above which 20% of regions or counties have higher levels of the observed statistic

Median – The median observation for the statistic

Bottom 20th – The cutoff point below which 20% of regions or counties have lower levels of the observed statistic

Using the screenshots as an example, in any of the other Equity reports, you can see that Region 1 has an unemployment rate of 6.5%. From the points shown in the Reference Levels for top 20th, median, and bottom 20th – 5.8%, 5.6%, and 5.0%, respectively – you can see that 6.5% is relatively high among the regions modeled for this project.

However, within the State, Region 1 ranks somewhat better, since among all the states’ counties, 7.5% is the cutoff for the top 20th. Region 1’s 6.5% unemployment rate is below that and thus better than at least 20% of the counties in the state (assuming Region 1 doesn’t include any of those counties).

Nationally, however, Region 1 would still be higher than 80% of counties, which we can say because the top 20th percentile is only 5.9% for all counties in the US for the data from year 2021 in this example.

TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results - Freight - Transearch

Use the sub tabs at the top of the screen to detailed table views:

Freight Summary
This screen shows the composition of freight flows in both tons or dollars for the selected region in both graphical and tabular format by years. You can see inbound, outbound, internal and through flows of commodities in addition to the totals of all origin-destination options.
Results - Transearch Freight1

Flow by Mode
The Flow by Mode screen presents by mode, the tons of goods, dollar value of those goods, or the number of vehicles used to transport those goods, by year and also flow type (inbound, outbound, etc.)
Results - Transearch Freight2

Mode-Commodity Mix
The Mode-Commodity Mix screen presents by mode, the tons of goods, dollar value of those goods, or the number of vehicles used to transport those goods, by year along with the detail commodities transported.
Results - Transearch Freight3

Trip Lengths
The Trip Lengths report breaks down the distances the commodities move, again as tons of goods, value of goods, or number of vehicles moving the goods, showing the breakdown in distance ranges, average, and estimated VMT.
Results - Transearch Freight4

Top locations
The Top Locations chart, presents as either a bubble chart or a direction chart the relative flow of goods (as tons, value, or number vehicles) with the largest/darkest bubbles delineating the largest values and conversely the smallest/lightest bubbles representing the smallest values. The quantities to be presented are selected with the drop down menus for
  • Region
  • Direction (inbound/outbound, total/domestic/international)
  • Commodity of interest (or all commodities)
  • Number of data points to show (top 5, 10, 25 (default), 50, 75, or 100)
  • Value shown (tons, value, vehicles)
  • and Year of interest
The map below is a representative bubble chart showing top 25 destinations the outbound domestic flow of paving or roofing materials in tons for 2018.
Results - Transearch Freight5

Economy Relationships
The Economy Relationships chart shows the trend for the top 7 commodities transported by value.
Results - Transearch Freight6

Freight Dependency
The Freight Dependency tab present the economic impacts (output, value added, income, and jobs) by industry for the region, direction, modes, commodities, and year selected, with the option to include labor match.
Results - Transearch Freight7

TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results - Freight

Once the Freight Analysis has finished running, you will be left at the Summary Results screen. Press the Freight tab to view your freight results.

Freight Summary
This screen presents a summary of the total commodity flows by tons or value, depending upon which subtab is selected. Only the years selected on the settings page show values, so if more details are needed, you will need to rerun the freight analysis from the settings screen.

Results - vFreight

Clicking on a bar in the graph will bring up a popup window with a line graph showing the composition of freight flows in either tons or value as selected using the tab. Flows are shown as total, inbound (coming into the study region), outbound (exported from the region), internal (origin and destination within the study region), and through (origin and destination are external to the study region). This data is provided in both graphical and tabular formats both allowing for the export of the data.

Results - vFreight Summary

In a similar manner, if you hover over a data point on a line, you will see the value at that point. Clicking on the data point brings up another popup with the commodity details in both tabular and graphical formats:

Results - vFreight


Flow by Mode
The Flow by Mode screen presents by mode, the tons of goods, dollar value of those goods, or the number of vehicles used to transport those goods, by year and also flow type (inbound, outbound, etc.)
Results - vFreight2

Mode-Commodity Mix
The Mode-Commodity Mix screen presents by mode, the tons of goods, dollar value of those goods, or the number of vehicles used to transport those goods, by year along with the detail commodities transported.
Results - vFreight3

Trip Lengths
The Trip Lengths report breaks down the distances the commodities move, again as tons of goods, value of goods, or number of vehicles moving the goods, showing the breakdown in distance ranges, average, and estimated VMT.
Results - vFreight4

Top locations
The Top Locations chart presents as either a bubble chart or a direction chart the relative flow of goods (as tons, value, or number vehicles) with the largest/darkest bubbles delineating the largest values and conversely the smallest/lightest bubbles representing the smallest values. The quantities to be presented are selected with the drop down menus for
  • Region
  • Direction (inbound/outbound, total/domestic/international)
  • Commodity of interest (or all commodities)
  • Number of data points to show (top 5, 10, 25 (default), 50, 75, or 100)
  • Value shown (tons, value, vehicles)
  • and Year of interest
The map below is a representative bubble chart showing top 25 destinations the outbound domestic flow of paving or roofing materials in tons for 2018.
Results - vFreight5

All locations
The All Locations tab provides baseline vFreight data for your study region, based on the settings you select in this tab for commodity flow direction (inbound/outbound domestic/international), commodities to view, domestic mode type, foreign mode type (for international flows), and foreign trade partner. Pressing the submit button processes this baseline data and is presented as a set of tables and maps (for more detailed user instructions please click here):

Results - vFreight Summary Table


Results - vFreight Summary Map


Economy Relationships
The Economy Relationships chart shows the trend for the top 7 commodities transported by value.
Results - vFreight6

Freight Dependency
The Freight Dependency tab present the economic impacts (output, value added, income, and jobs) by industry for the region, direction, modes, commodities, and year selected, with the option to include labor match.
Results - vFreight7

TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Results - VIA

 
 
Coming Soon


TREDIS 6.0 User Manual Return to Contents

Glossary

Term Definition
Alternative Within a TREDIS project, alternatives such as Base (no-build) and Project (build) are compared
Analysis Type TREDIS adapts the user inputs and available results to match where in the transportation planning cycle the user project falls.  In addition to the Advanced Mode, TREDIS includes Public Policy, Vision Planning, Prioritization, Alternatives Analysis, Single Project, Existing Facility, and Asset Management Types.
Access See Market Access
BCA Benefit Cost Analysis. Click here for detailed explanation
Buffer Time Refers to the hours that travelers must set aside for each vehicle trip in addition to their travel time in order to arrive on-time 95% of trips. Average buffer time per trip is related to average travel time per trip by the buffer time index. TREDIS can estimate needed buffer time per trip based on the information you provide on total Trips, total VHT, and percent of VMT congested (V/C > .9).
Constant Dollar Year The adjusted value of currency used to compare dollar values from one period to another.
Construction Period The schedule years when a project's construction activities occur.  This period ranges from the Construction Start Year to the Construction End Year
Contingent Development Refers to discrete jobs or business sales attracted to the region due to the transportation improvement – the development of this economic activity is contingent on completion of the project. Contingent development within the market access inputs section of TREDIS can be used when the agency has more specific information on land development or job attraction that should be included as well as estimates from transportation cost savings and expansions of the labor market or same day deliver market areas.
Contract TREDIS organizes subscriptions using the concept of contracts.  The contract contains information about the geographies the user may access and time period the subscription is active.
Costs Costs are the project expenditures made during the Construction Period and then the operating and maintenance expenditures during the Operations Period.
Cost Elements:
Property Acquisition: Right-of-way purchases or easements

Engineering and Design: Soft costs of construction, including planning, analysis, legal, architectural, engineering, and design work.

Right of Way: Earthmoving, grading, drainage, and paving. For railroads, this includes all expenditures on the laying of rails; for airports, this includes runway construction.

Transport Structures: Construction of culverts, road bridges, flyovers, railroad bridges, and marine docks

Terminal: Operations offices, maintenance facilities, airport/bus/rail terminals, or storage buildings

Vehicles: Acquisition of rail cars and engines, ferries, airplanes, barges, or maintenance or service vehicles

Ongoing Operations: Cost related to transit service operation, highway toll collection, systems operation, or incident management

Maintenance and Rehabilitation: Crack repair, repaving, or vegetation control; also includes vehicle servicing.

CO2 Carbon Dioxide (pollutants)
Custom Mode A custom mode is a user created mode, based on an existing mode which can have different default values.  Custom modes are shared among all members of the user's account, with the user who created the custom mode uniquely able to edit the default values.
Direct Impact The effect of cost savings to system users under the transportation scenario modeled, or spending by the operator or constructing entity of a project or service.
Discount Rate Cost of capital (interest rates).   Note: TREDIS uses the default values of 3% and 7%, which corresponds to the values typically used in grant applications, although the user may change these values prior to running the analysis on the Results - Settings screen.
EIA Economic Impact Analysis. Click here for detailed explanation
Environmental Factors This deals with emissions generated by the vehicles in the project.  Factors include tons of emissions (VOC, SO2, NOX, PM, and CO2) per vehicle mile traveled both free flow and congested, along with the cost per ton of these pollutants.
FIA Financial Impact Analysis. Click here for detailed explanation
Fraction Congested Fraction of time all vehicles for a specific mode-purpose are experiencing congestion (values range from 0 - 1.0)
Fraction of Trips: Incoming Fraction of trips (0 - 1.0) that originate outside the study region and end in the study region
Fraction of Trips: Internal Fraction of trips (0 - 1.0) that originate in the study region and also end in the study region
Fraction of Trips: Outgoing Fraction of trips (0 - 1.0) that originate inside the study region and end outside the study region
Fraction of Trips: Through Fraction of trips (0 - 1.0) that originate outside the study region and end outside the study region
Indirect Impacts The effect of spending by the suppliers to business users benefiting from system improvements, or suppliers of operators or constructing entities of a project or service.
Induced Impacts The effect of household spending due to additional employment and payroll generated by direct and indirect impacts.
Labor Income Labor Income includes employee compensation and proprietor income. In TREDIS, it represents the additional wages, salaries, and benefits for employees and new income for proprietors from the scenario analyzed.
Labor Market The labor market affected by a project is considered to be the number of residents within a 40 minute trip of an employment center affected by the project. TREDIS default labor market values are based on the population within a 40 minute drive-time from the population-weighted centroid of a county. On the Summary graphic, TREDIS shows the percent improvement which you indicated your project is expected to provide.
Linked Area Regions directly connected to study region, defaults to geographies within study region, but may be overwritten. (Contact your account manager to add linked areas that are outside your subscribed account regions)
Local Market Approximate 40-minute commute time (way). The threshold at which most employees are willing to travel.
Market Access Translates changes in market access and intermodal connectivity into effects on agglomeration, dispersion and scale economies for industry sectors. It applies calculation methods backed by peer-reviewed publications for estimating wider economic impacts.
Mode Transportation type, such as passenger car, truck, and bus used in the Project analysis
NOX Nitric Oxide and Nitrogen Dioxide (pollutants)
Occupational Aggregation Refers to the number of digits of Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes to use when reporting economic impacts by occupation. The SOC system is developed and published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and used for their reporting. TREDIS offers 2-, 3-, and 4-digit SOC Code aggregation.
O & M Operations and Maintenance - see Cost Elements for Ongoing Operations, and Maintenance and Rehabilitation.
Operations Period The period of time when the transportation system is in operation and is incurring operating and maintenance costs.  This period ranges from the Operations Start Year to the Operations End Year.
Output Output represents the value of industry production. For manufacturers, this would be sales plus/minus change in inventory. For service sectors production, output is simply the value of sales. For Retail and wholesale trade, output is represented by gross margin and not gross sales. Margin is sales receipts less the cost of goods sold.
Period A time period specified at the Project Level, defined solely by its travel demand characteristics. Multiple periods may be used to model differences in peak vs. off-peak or seasonal differences resulting from road closures.
Period Veh-Trips The number of one way trips made by all vehicles during the period (annually for example)
PM Particulate matter (pollutants) - complex mixture of extremely small particles and liquid droplets in air. Particle pollution is made up of a number of components, including acids (such as nitrates and sulfates), organic chemicals, metals, and soil or dust particles.
Productivity The average measure of the efficiency of production, which is expressed as the ratio of the outputs to the inputs as used in the production process, i.e. output per unit of input.
Project The major unit of a TREDIS analysis defined by certain parameters being held constant.  It has the following features: (1) the geography (Region) is constant over the entire analysis, (2) all Alternatives within the Project have the same time horizon (that is, the same Construction Period and Operations Period), and (3) certain parameters such as the discount rate, are "fixed" across Alternatives when they are being compared.
Project Group TREDIS allows the user to organize collections of projects in groups.  The criteria for organizing is up to the user and may be elements such as user projects, team projects, archived projects (for saving older projects), etc.
Purpose Trip purposes are used to classify why a trip is taken and is associated with a mode to form a mode-purpose combination. The trip purposes will fall into one of the following five categories:  Business, Personal, Commute, Freight, or No Split (which is the combination of the previous four selections.)
Results Year Year used for presenting TREDIS results, typically in the future
Same-Day Market Approximate 180-minute (3-hour) drive time for a same day truck delivery of goods. Allows for delivery and truck return to warehouse the same day.
STCC The Standard Transportation Commodity Code (STCC) is a publication containing specific product information used on waybills and other shipping documents. A STCC code is a seven digit numeric code representing 38 commodity groupings.
SO2 Sulfur Oxides (pollutants)
Study Region Geographic areas where the Build Alternative takes place.  These study areas may be as small as a zip-code or as large as a collection of states.  A project may have 1 or more Regions (up to 10).
Supply Chain Refers to the same day delivery market for an employment center modeled by the project. It conversely considers the establishments that can serve your employment center with same day delivers. TREDIS estimates Supply Chains based on the employment at establishments within a 3 hour drive time. Default values for supply chain area employment are based on the employment-weighted centroid of a county. On the Summary graphic, TREDIS shows the percent improvement which you indicated your project is expected to provide.
Terminal An intramodal transfer facility such as an airport, marine port, or rail facilities (passenger and freight)
Time/Value Factors Default values used by TREDIS to address costs per crew member, passenger, and freight logistics, as well as buffer time costs and out of vehicle transfer costs
Travel Characteristics Translates changes in traffic volumes, vehicle occupancy, speed, distance, reliability and safety into direct cost savings for household and business travel. It applies practices for travel modeling and economic valuation that are widely accepted by metropolitan, state and federal agencies.
TREDIS Transportation Economic Development Impact System
Truck L-T-L Truck L-T-L refers to Less than Truckload shipping. This Mode is used to describe trucks used where a shipment does not require a full 48- or 53-foot trailer. Examples are lift gate and residential pickups and deliveries, etc.
Truck PVT Refers to "Private" truck freight.
Truck NEC Refers to truck freight "Not Elsewhere Classified."
Useful Life The useful life of a facility describes the number of years after which a facility is considered to be obsolete and in need of replacement. TREDIS uses information on the useful life of project investment categories to determine the residual value of those investments at the end of the analysis period. At the completion of construction, investments begin depreciating at a rate tied to the useful life factor.
Value Added Value Added changes from a project can also be considered as changes in Gross Regional Product or GDP. Value Added is the difference between an industry’s or establishment’s total output and the cost of intermediate inputs. It consist of employee compensation, taxes on production and imports less subsidies, and gross operating surplus (similar to profit).
VHT Vehicles Hours Travelled
VMT Vehicle Miles Travelled
VOC Volatile Organic Compounds (pollutants)

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